r; 






THE 



BATTLE-GROUND 



Spiritual Reformation 



S. B. BRITTAN, M.D., 

Editor- at-Large. 



#, 



Truth is the naked sword of the Spirit. — Author. 

' Take the hright sword that flashes from the skies, 
O Man, and smite the hosts of Despotism." — Spirit of Shelley. 

He that is first in his own cause seemeth just ; 

But his neighbor cometh and searcheth him. — Solomon. 




NEW YORIOMV • / "/-0O./>v 

Published for the AurafcassJj^!J lN< 
By COLBY & RICH, 
9 Montgomery Place, Boston, Mass., 
1882. 






IS 



Copyright, 1882, 
By S. B. BR ITT AN. 



</ 



TO 

MR. LUTHER COLBY, 

Clje Icmrmuislic %tunbvixb-§mm 

OF 

MODERN SPIRITUALISM IN AMERICA ; 

FOR HIS 

LONG SERVICE AND UNWAVERING FIDELITY 

TO 

A NOBLE, BUT UNPOPULAR CAUSE ; 

AND, 

ESPECIALLY, FOR HIS CONSTANT ENDEAVORS 

TO 

RENDER THE WRITER'S RECENT LABORS 
MORE EFFECTUAL FOR GOOD ; 

THIS VOLUME IS 



giffectionateljj fnstribeb, 



THE AUTHOR. 



BATTLE-GROUND 

OF THE 

SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE history of the development of religious ideas fur- 
nishes no parallel to the progress of Modern Spirit- 
ualism, whether we consider its essential nature, the means 
employed in its advancement, or the rapidity of its triumphs. 
It is true that different systems of religion have been widely 
propagated, and it may almost literally be said that nations 
have been converted in a day. We cannot search the ar- 
chives of remote ages for historical illustrations, but will limit 
our survey to the Christian era. Constantine at once em- 
braced the religion of Jesus when he saw its burning ensign 
above the horizon. Under his authority the faith so impres- 
sively symbolized consecrated splendid temples where the 
manger and the cross had stood ; the Goth was subjugated, 
and altars to the new religion were reared among the ruins of 
Byzantium. But the arm of imperial power and the sword 
of the conqueror were the instruments of its propagation, 
and the blood-stained banners of victorious armies waved 
over the shrines of the Crucified. 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

The religion of * the Koran was very speedily established 
throughout Arabia. It carried its conquests into Syria, and 
its progress was only arrested by the death of the Prophet. 
Mohammed, also, achieved his success by no very gentle 
means. He inculcated the idea that his disciples were to 
employ the sword in vindicating the claims of his religion. A 
paradise of sensual pleasures, and the fellowship of angelic 
heroes were promised to all who should be victorious in the 
cause of God and his Prophet. Such were the means and 
instruments whereby the Arabian Chief made the conquest of 
his country, and produced the greatest revolution in human 
affairs that has occurred since the beginning of the Christian 
era. But he violated the principles of justice, and trampled 
on the rights of human nature. Liberty of conscience was 
granted to the Jew and the Christian only on the condition 
that they would pay for it, while for idolaters there was no 
alternative but conversion or the sword. When the Prophet, 
after being exiled for seven years, returned to his native city, 
three hundred and fifty idols which defiled its famous Pan- 
theon were cast down and broken in pieces, while their wor- 
shipers only escaped destruction by a timely conversion. 

The means whereby the Roman Emperor and the Arabian 
Prophet achieved their conquests were not essentially dissim- 
ilar. The divinely beautiful spirit of Jesus was crucified in 
the very midst of the outward triumphs of Christianity. Con- 
stantine was neither a greater nor a better man than Moham- 
med. If the strong hand of the Arabian iconoclast rudely 
demolished the idols in the famous kaaba, it was that he 
might suppress the idolatrous worship of his people, and 



INTRODUCTION. V 

make Mecca the holy city of the Moslem.* It was prob- 
ably from motives of piety rather than policy that the Prophet 
established the rite and enforced the obligation of pilgrimage. 
The ambition of the Roman Emperor was perhaps more 
selfish, while it was scarcely more consonant with the pre- 
cepts of Jesus than that of the Arab prince. The crowned 
Christian was not more conspicuous for fidelity to his own 
faith, nor was his authority more cheerfully acknowledged. 
The most powerful monarchies in the world witnessed the 
progress of Mohammed with extreme apprehension, and the 
influence of the religion of the Koran was felt in Asia, Africa, 
and Europe. 

The Prophet professed to have entered the heavens, and to 
have intercourse with exalted spirits. It is true that in every 
circumstance of trial and danger he inspired his followers 
with the greatest enthusiasm by promising them the assist- 
ance of Gabriel, and by his descriptions of the angelic hosts 
which peopled all the air, and stood by his followers to nerve 
their arms in battle, or to bear those who might fall in his 
service to the enchanted realm of immortal forms of beauty 
and pleasures for ever new. The last hours of the Arab 
Chief were poisoned by the memory of unrighteous deeds ; 
but no believer in the Christian religion was ever more truly 
penitent. When at last he stood face to face with death he 



* "Had it not been for Mohammed, the East, at this moment, in all 
probability, would have been wholly given up to idolatrous practices. 
His mission prevented this, and established an absolute theological idea 
which would otherwise have found no political home on the face of the 
globe." — Divine Drama of History and Civilization, p. 259. 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

directed his disciples to support him in the Mosque while he 
celebrated the praise of God. Reviewing the record of his 
life, he said : " If any one complaineth that I have stricken 
him unjustly, lo ! here is my back ; let him return the blows. 
If I have injured the reputation of anyone, let him treat me in 
the same manner. If I have taken money from any one, I am 
here ready to restore it." No Christian prince ever exhibited 
deeper humility or more sincere repentance. Thus died the 
Prophet of Allah, and his last words were a prayer for the 
pardon of his sins. 

The spirit that animates the soldier, and the nature of the 
weapons employed in his warfare, must determine the moral 
character of the contest and of the chief actors in the drama 
of human history. Tried by this standard, what preeminence 
has the historical Christianity over Islamism ? If we go to the 
battle-field at the suggestion of an unworthy ambition, we 
had better follow the standard of the Infidel, or any other 
image sacred or profane, than presume to unfurl the ensign of 
the Cross. Christians deny and defame their acknowledged 
Master when they put away his spirit ; they renounce his 
religion as often as they violate his plainest precepts, and 
they crucify him whenever they thus dishonor the symbols of 
his faith and worship. The crucifixion, in the most vital 
sense, should not be regarded as a solitary event in ecclesias- 
tical annals. It is rather a fact of universal observation and 
constant repetition. Christians have never ceased to pervert 
the pure faith and spiritual worship of their illustrious Teacher. 
The lessons of the manger, the mountain, and the cross, were 
peace on earth, forgiveness of offenders, and good will toward 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

all men. But the vision of the sacred symbol in the heavens 
at noonday did not make a peaceful conqueror of the Chris- 
tian Emperor. The heavenly mandate did not stay the sword. 
In such an example there was no spiritual health, but a mortal 
contagion. Authentic history demonstrates the fact. Others 
followed fast in his bloody footsteps. A war of two hundred 
years was inaugurated in the eleventh century by the enthusi- 
asts instigated by Peter the Hermit. They fought desperately 
for the Holy Sepulcher, and they used such profane weapons 
as were employed by the infidel Saracens. 

In the twelfth century St. Dominic and Pope Innocent III., 
professed followers of Jesus, and ministers of his religion, or- 
ganized in Spain, for the trial and destruction of heretics, a 
bloody tribunal, with whips, dungeons, wheels, racks, and all 
the infernal machinery of torture. Jesus was crucified anew, 
and put to an open shame in the person of every poor victim 
of the Inquisition. Hell is imminent in the hearts and lives 
of the men who thus contrive to exhaust the powers of inven- 
tion in the arts of cruelty. Notwithstanding Ignatius Loyola 
took the prescribed vows of poverty, chastity, monastic obe- 
dience, and abject submission, the Jesuits became the wealth- 
iest and most powerful religious order in the world. Politi- 
cally and morally this so-called Society of Jesus (?) proved to be 
so utterly unscrupulous and oppressive, that its very name has 
become a synonym for cunning intrigue, systematic deception, 
and absolute despotism. What a prostitution of eminent learn- 
ing and great opportunities ! And what a desecration of a 
revered name ! 

The Church, established by the power of the sword and up- 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

held by a policy fatal to individual liberty, was at best a merely 
human institution. The remarkable gifts possessed by the 
primitive disciples were gradually withdrawn, and the spiritual 
element, which was the divine life in the Church, languished 
and nearly expired at its own altars. Gorgeous temples, con- 
secrated and enriched by imperial authority and munificence, 
were its sepulchers. The crucifixion, in a most vital sense, 
occurred when the Christian religion was married to the tem- 
poral power. Then it was that its indwelling spirit departed. 
That spirit was known to be present by the mysterious powers 
which it conferred on all true believers. At length, when the 
manifestation of the spiritual presence was no more or but 
rarely witnessed, it was evident that the Power itself which 
bestowed such gifts had deserted the shrines which men had 
reared and profaned. Since that day the true spirit ot the 
religion of the Nazarine has been in the tombs, and a great 
stone — the whole system of material theology and ritualistic 
worship — has barred the door of the sepulcher The clergy 
resist every effort to roll the stone away. When the spirit 
which characterized the primitive Church has manifested a 
disposition to return with all its ancient gifts and divine ener- 
gies, far more widely diffused, they have madly resisted its 
power, as if they would have the spiritual death of the Church 
eternal. To-day only a poor effigy of the Crucified looks out 
of the stained windows of temples which are but garnished 
crypts of the slain Jesus. 

What has Christianity been since it was thus corrupted, but 
the religious form of popular materialism — an earthly institu- 
tion holding fellowship with every great wrong which pride, 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

fashion, and avarice have contributed to establish, and depend- 
ing on civil authority or the mailed arm for protection and 
the means of extending its empire ? Christian propagandists 
have, it is true, carried the Bible into every heathen land, but 
they have also carried along with it alcohol, the sword, the 
gibbet, and all the vices of a corrupt civilization. The Church 
militant has countenanced polygamy, slavery, vindictive pun- 
ishments and aggressive war, and lived in open and adulter- 
ous union with numerous forms of corruption and oppression. 
The autocrat still grasps the ensign of irresponsible power, 
and the same despotic hand holds the sword and the cross. 

The Protestant Reformation, under the leadership of Lu- 
ther, Melancthon, and Calvin, in the sixteenth century, was lit- 
tle more than a bold protest against the gross corruptions of 
the Church and most unscrupulous abuses of ecclesiastical 
power. These manifold evils were shamefully conspicuous in 
scandalous sales of indulgences, at low prices, by which the 
papal revenues were vastly increased, and in the cruel perse- 
cutions of heretics, whose lives were counted worthless by the 
recognized authorities of the Christian world. Nor were these 
evils all confined to the Church of Rome. They did not ter- 
minate with the advent of Luther, nor in the lifetime of his 
contemporaries. In a degree that is unpleasant to contemplate, 
they were transmitted by the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse, 
whose matrix gave form to the monstrous conception 
" Of Calvinism — born from out the sea 
Of the Dark Ages and their tyranny — 
From whose womb all hideous shapes have birth, 
Of dogma, creed, and mind-oppressing rite." 

The work of the reformers was incomplete. They rendered 



X INTRODUCTION. 

an important service to mankind in their day, and we honor 
them ; but the Church is not yet freed from the corruptions 
of those Mediaeval Ages. The ordinary moral disinfectants 
have no power to cleanse its record. It is not made white, 
in fact, by the blood of the Lamb, and at last it must be "pu- 
rified by fire." 

I emphasize the statement that the Reformation is not fin- 
ished. On the contrary, its deeper meaning is just beginning 
to be apprehended. In our time it is something far more sig- 
nificant than a resolute protest against the corruptions of the 
prevailing religion and the arbitrary dogmata of ecclesiasti- 
cal councils. It is not in the highest sense a rude conflict 
with hoary errors and gigantic wrongs ; it is not a mere tilt 
with the agents of despotic authority. It takes form in a new 
psychological science and more profound philosophy of human 
nature, covering the entire realm of our relations to all things 
visible and invisible. The Battle-Ground of this Spiritual 
Reformation is not limited by geographical and national boun- 
daries. It does not stop at the lines which separate the races 
of men, and is not confined to the large area of modern civili- 
zation. It is a silent but irresistible power in the Church and 
the world. It humbles the proud and exalts the lowly ; it 
strengthens the weak and rebukes the unworthy ; it defies the 
Pope and his cardinals ; the schools of science are dumb with 
astonishment ; it oversteps all real and imaginary limitations, 
and promises to make the conquest of the world. 

The Spiritual Reformation is not now especially indebted to 
earthly agents and human cooperation for its rapid progress 
in our time and its present commanding influence. An invis- 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

ible and spiritual power — operating far and wide among the 
forms of the material universe — reveals itself in the diversified 
and startling physical and mental phenomena which have of 
late confounded the science and skepticism of the world. A 
mysterious power — everywhere bearing the stamp of human 
intelligence — immensely superior to the force of gravitation 
and the laws of molecular attraction and chemical affinity, is 
revealed among the subtle forces and ponderable elements of 
Nature. Inanimate objects are seemingly endowed with the 
powers of life, sensation, and volition. The ignorant aston- 
ish the wise by speaking in unknown tongues, and by reveal- 
ing the secrets of Nature and the human mind. The masters 
of Art, who left their carved memorials and pictured thoughts 
for our contemplation, come back to inspire the souls of the 
living, and to guide the hands of those who shall yet fashion 
immortal creations. A new fire kindles in the eye and burns 
on the lips of the orator ; sweet voices speak out of the depths 
in the solemn night, and divine instruction comes with the 
rays of the morning. " Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
night unto night sheweth knowledge." The strings of the lyre 
are now swept by invisible fingers to notes of inspiration ; the 
heavenly harmonies descend into the poet's brain as soft per- 
fumes, and gentle sounds steal along the avenues of sense ; 
they take form and clothe themselves in the cerebral cham- 
bers, and great thoughts issue in harmonic numbers to charm 
the listening nations. 

A cause that is rendered all-powerful by such means ; the 
Reformation that derives the chief elements of its existence 
and its progress from unseen sources of fathomless ability — 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

the movement which in one-third of a century has attracted 
the attention of the whole civilized world — will not be likely 
to require the assistance of either legislation, fashion, or even 
mammon to secure its future triumph. The springs of its 
immortal life and the eternal laws of its development all have 
their archetypal forms in the Heavens. Such a cause needs 
no carnal weapons for its defense. The world is welcome to 
its arms and the heroes it so blindly worships. The warrior 
shall carry his scarred helm and glittering spear with him to 
the scene of his last repose ; the gold-worshiper may build 
his gilded cenotaph, and crown and scepter rust and decay in 
common earth with the regal arm and the kingly brow. It is 
fit that the sepulcher of unsanctified ambition should inclose 
its weapons and its trophies. Spiritualism accepts no aid 
from these, for by the powers that reside in heavenly places 
it is triumphant and immortal. 

As multitudes were still ignorant of the real facts of Spirit- 
ualism, while comparatively few had any clear comprehension 
of its profound philosophy, it was proposed, in the year 1879, to 
employ the secular press of the United States for the purpose 
of such a statement of its facts and illustration of its princi- 
ciples as might be necessary to correct the popular miscon- 
ception of its character, and to properly vindicate its claims 
before the world. No one who supported the movement 
ever thought of discounting the proper claims of our spiritual 
papers, or of suspending the free use of any other means pre- 
viously employed for the wide diffusion of spiritual knowledge. 
No friend of the measure ever conceived the crazy idea of 
imposing the slightest restraint upon the individual freedom 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

of the humblest disciple of the truth ; or of otherwise inter- 
fering with the peculiar views, personal prerogatives, or any 
conceivable interest of a single human being. Of course, it 
was not anticipated that the proposal to thus utilize the news- 
paper press of the country in the elucidation of the accepted 
facts and general principles of Spiritualism would meet with 
the slightest opposition from a single professed friend of the 
truth. Indeed, the nature of the case seemed to preclude the 
possibility of any determined resistance of such a measure. 
Only those who favored the plan were called upon to furnish 
the necessary means for its execution. No one else ever did 
or was expected to subscribe to the fund. Yet, strange to say, 
before the author had fairly entered upon his labors as the 
Editor-at-Large, an unfriendly feeling was engendered, by the 
conjunction of what adverse influences we will not attempt 
to explain. Indeed, the writer was never able to discover any 
rational cause for the opposition ; nevertheless a portion of 
the spiritualistic press of the United States both felt and 
manifested a bitter hostility to the enterprise, as will plainly 
appear from a perusal of the Appendix to this volume. 

A few of the scribes thought they saw in the Secular 
Press Bureau an engine of fathomless mischief, and they 
did what they could to make others see it in the same lurid 
light. To the observation of certain spiritual journals, whose 
apprehensions were perhaps the natural offspring of conscious 
weakness, the Editor-at-Large appeared to be a journalistic 
autocrat in his sanctum, surrounded by unscrupulous confed- 
erates, whose principal object was a censorship of the whole 
spiritual press of the country. No figment of the disordered 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

imagination was too absurd to find a place in the brains of 
certain spiritualistic "cranks." They saw the Bureau in 
various aspects according to their several proclivities, all of 
which seemed to such observers to be pregnant with only 
evil. Viewed from the meridian of Chicago, it was apparently 
an " eleemosynary device " to make a certain old spiritual 
mendicant undeservedly rich on some twelve hundred a year. 
In other words, ignoring the fact of any concurrent service 
to be rendered, it was presumed to be the intention of those 
engaged in the " scheme," to pension at least one superannu- 
ated pioneer, at the expense of a long-suffering spiritual people, 
and, at the same time — by means of a popular subscription — 
to furnish free a regular contributor to the Banner of Light. 
This " eleemosynary scheme " — as observed from the " City 
of Brotherly Love," through the murky atmosphere of the 
spiritual pandemonium — was Satan's own embodiment of all 
the elements of cunning deception, hypocrisy, and Jesuitical 
despotism. At the same time, in a poetic observation of the 
'* scheme " — as seen from the Cincinnati spiritual observatory 
by a dramatic art interpreter of the Bard of Avon, through 
his pair of judicial spectacles — the Bureau was discovered to 
be the box of Pandora, with such improvements as modern 
discovery has contributed to the arts of infernal mischief. 

Some of our people were tired of empty words and hollow 
pretensions to an interest in the cause, and many more were 
heartily sick of personal and aimless disputations in our own 
ranks ; and they felt that they might very properly engage in 
somz practical work, without giving offense to any one, and 
with a view to a much wider diffusion of spiritual knowledge 



INTRODUCTION, XV 

among the people. It did not occur to the earnest and 
liberal friends of the movement, that we had any petty dic- 
tators in this free country whom they must first consult and 
conciliate, before daring to support a measure of such public 
importance as the subsidiary employment of the secular press 
in the interest of Spiritualism. Accordingly, they went about 
their own business in no ostentatious manner, but in a quiet, 
rational way ; regardless alike of personal jealousies and the 
explosive passions of little souls who are accustomed to shout 
freedom until they are hoarse, and practice intolerance until 
they disgust the rest of mankind. 

The true objects and manifest aims of the Editor-at-Large 
and his friends were grossly misrepresented, and many honest 
people led astray to a false conclusion. In the hope of dis- 
abusing the public mind, in the equal interest of truth and 
justice, and yet in the true spirit of conciliation, the author, 
at an early opportunity, prepared a friendly epistle, especially 
addressed to the Editor of the Banner of Light, and intended 
to disarm unreasoning suspicion and opposition. This circu- 
lar letter merits a place in the Introduction to this Book. It 
will serve to illustrate the independent and liberal, yet unob- 
trusive spirit in which the good work of the Secular Press 
Bureau was undertaken. It is not the fault of the author 
if it be found to involve a clearer revelation of the ungra- 
cious animus of those who could discern nothing but evil in 
the honest purpose and the earnest labors of its friends and 
supporters. Compared with the dogmatic and unreasoning 
spirit of the opposition, it will appear to involve a striking and 
vivid contrast. 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

THE LETTER TO MR. LUTHER COLBY. 

PUBLISHED IN THE "BANNER OF LIGHT," FEB. 14, 1880. 

In order to save valuable time, which must be faithfully- 
devoted to more important public interests, I may here, once 
for all, respond briefly to the suggestions of several personal 
friends, private correspondents, and all others who would have 
me participate in personal controversies which at best are 
always unprofitable. Life is so short, and its duties and obli- 
gations of so sacred a nature, that we cannot for a moment 
entertain the idea of such a departure from the established 
habit of a lifetime. There are so many great questions which 
really concern the general and lasting interests of mankind, 
that any extended presentation of personal grievances would 
be out of place, and unbecoming the character of a spiritual 
reformer. The questions referred to demand so much, seri- 
ous thought and practical illustration, that we have neither 
time nor inclination to engage in any petty warfare which may 
have its origin in private interests and personal ambition. I 
have little disposition to censure the conduct of others, much 
less would I presume to pass judgment upon their motives. I 
cannot, however, conscientiously suspend my appropriate work 
to engage in unfriendly disputations, which seldom fail to gen- 
erate acrimonious feeling and the bitterness which produces 
lasting alienation among those who should dwell together in 
unity and peace. 

Should one come to us having a commission to throw dust 
iif*the eyes of the rest of mankind, we might very properly 
question the utility of his mission, and conclude that it might 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

be safe to abolish his office. If there are persons so employed 
who seem to love their occupation, we do not propose to act 
in the capacity of sharp detectives in bringing such people to 
the bar of retributive justice. Just how far they are morally 
responsible for their conduct we may never infallibly know. 
When a proper example fails to exercise a salutary restraint, 
we may leave them to run the length of their tether, and to 
measure the consequences of their folly by the line of a pain- 
ful experience. 

We are reminded that history has recorded the names and 
deeds of men who seem to have been born to illustrate the great 
diversities of human character, and the extreme possibilities 
of individual destinies. Jesus and Judas, George Washington 
and Benedict Arnold, performed their parts respectively in the 
world, and who shall say that such opposite characters were 
not necessary to the completeness of the divine drama of 
republican Liberty and Christian civilization ? If one has an 
unpleasant and thankless part to perform, and his- peculiar 
work inspires a feeling of displeasure and disgust in others, it 
may possibly be only a misfortune, for which he is deserving 
of commiseration. Let us, as far as possible, draw over all 
such the broad mantle of that charity which recognizes the 
rational limit to individual responsibility, while it mercifully 
sheathes the sword of Justice in a velvet wrapper. 

No man, however commanding his talents and ambitious in 
his aims, may aspire to the office of sole manager in this great 
theater of human events. It is not our purpose to take up 
another man's role j to divide public attention by any super- 
ficial device or by-play with parties behind the scenes ; nor 



XV111 INTRODUCTION. 

are we disposed to crowd the other actors off the stage by 
any real or imaginary skill in fencing. The supernumerary who 
performs his humble part with an honest purpose is entitled 
to receive our right hand of fellowship. Personally, we only 
demand space for earnest action and the measure of freedom 
which is our birthright. But we cannot be expected to ask 
permission to play our own part in this performance. There 
is no spiritual hierarchy to determine what we may or may not 
do in the exercise of our personal right to labor in the com- 
mon vineyard. Happily, in the absence of such an institu- 
tion, the individual may be wisely allowed to pursue his own 
course, and in the performance of his work to hold in supreme 
respect the sober dictates of reason and conscience. 

We have strong desires, an earnest purpose, and modest 
expectations. All we imperatively demand is necessary room 
for some healthful exercise, liberty to do our work in our own 
way, and to accept of such aid as may be freely given. For 
these privileges we shall of course offer no supplication. The 
American type of manhood does not descend so low. If it is 
proper to render thanks on this occasion, let the offering be 
made to the Father of our spirits, and the fathers of the Re- 
public, from whom we derived the priceless inheritance of civil 
and religious liberty. Most men who have labored long for 
the defense of unpopular truths, and in the interest of uni- 
versal humanity, have had various restraints imposed upon 
them, and many obstacles thrown in their way. Something of 
this kind has been, and may still continue to be, an element in 
our personal experience ; and yet it is worthy of observation 
that the avowed enemies of Spiritualism have neither disputed 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

our natural right to find our place under the laws of mental 
and moral gravitation, nor the propriety of performing our 
legitimate work after the manner of our choice. The despotic 
assumption of this high prerogative was left to certain pro- 
fessed Spiritualists, whose chronic dissatisfaction in respect to 
our course seems incurable. On the whole, we have, perhaps, 
been fortunate in our experience, since other men may have 
rendered better service and fared worse at the hands of the 
evil spirits of jealousy and personal ambition. We know that 
many worthy men have been tempted by worldly considera- 
tions, and otherwise sorely tried to test their devotion to truth 
and righteous living, and withal to place the fair record of their 
fidelity beyond dispute. St. Paul was not the only spiritual 
reformer who may have discovered "a thorn in his flesh, the 
messenger of an adversary to buffet him." (n. Cor. xn. 7.) 

In entering upon the work assigned me, I have not consci- 
ously given offence to any man. While I have never solicited 
the special fellowship of any clique or party, I have ever de- 
sired to preserve the most cordial and fraternal relations with 
all men, especially with those who belong to the household of 
a living faith and the modern Gospel. I accept no authority 
but Truth fitly expressed; I would wield no i?ifiuence but that 
which necessarily accompanies its proclamation. I am not here to 
dogmatize on any subject; I do not propose to meddle with any 
other 7nans affairs; I will not li?nit his independence of mind by 
doing his thinking for him; nor do I contemplate the smallest 
supervision of the work of the spiritual press, beyond the reading 
of the papers and the right of private judgment of the character 
and value of their co?itents. My labors will be performed in 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

another and a broader field. In bearing the white flag of a 
rational Spiritualism into the camp of its enemies, I am happy 
to know that I cannot possibly get in the way of those who 
may not be pleased to accompany the expedition. 

Every day brings me new evidence that the work under- 
taken is positively demanded by the exigency of the times. 
Papers are being forwarded from every quarter of the country, 
with marked articles which the Editor-at-Large is expected to 
review in the interest of truth and as necessary vindications of 
its friends. I am also in receipt of letters from eminent per- 
sons in England and France, assuring me that they regard the 
proposed work as of the greatest practical importance. If the 
determined efforts of the spirits, the earnest cooperation of the 
Banner of Light, and the present contributors to the Fund 
are properly sustained by others, we shall doubtless be able to 
present some rational views of Spiritualism to at least a million 
of people before the termination of the present year — people 
who never read our papers, and before whom the only exhibi- 
tions of the subject hitherto may have consisted of the basest 
caricatures. 

Let personal and acrimonious disputations cease forever. 
Among those who recognize one divine Father of all, and all 
men as one common Brotherhood, such controversies are 
manifestly out of place. Let us give our attention to essential 
principles, to spiritual ideas, and to practical measures. For 
the honor of a great cause, which has been so long defamed 
abroad and much abused at home, let us give more time to 
devout meditation and earnest work. S. B. B. 

80 West Eleventh street, New York, Februarys, 1880. 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 

One might have supposed that such a statement of reasons 
for choosing to quietly pursue our work — without stopping to 
reply to those who not only assailed the Bureau, but attrib- 
uted most unworthy motives to the Editor-at-Large and the 
principal supporters of his work — might have been sufficient 
to disarm opposition. But the malcontents were not to be ap- 
peased ; and for two years we pursued our peaceful labors — 
in the interest of the common cause — under the running fire 
of an enemy bearing a white flag and claiming shelter in the 
very citadel of the Spiritual Revolution. How far the hostile 
spirit of detraction and animadversion may find any possible 
justification or excuse in the facts and circumstances of the 
case, is a question which is confidently left to the candid judg- 
ment of all who may faithfully peruse the following pages. 

It was more especially during the first year of its existence 
that the opposition to the Bureau displayed the least reason 
and the greatest intensity. In the bitterness of their hostility 
its enemies did not hesitate to publicly defame the more prom- 
inent persons engaged in the work, and always without the 
slightest cause or provocation. For the credit of the common 
humanity let the fact be plainly stated that this peculiar class 
was never numerous, though often offensively obtrusive and 
noisy. Perhaps in the course they resolved to pursue they saw 
the main chance of gaining distinction in this world. We know 
that some noble natures are rendered memorable by their help- 
fulness of their fellow-men, and for important services in the 
interest of truth, justice and humanity ; while others only es- 
cape oblivion, achieving an unenviable immortality, by reason 
of their offenses. It is not the province of the writer to de- 



XX11 INTRODUCTION. 

termine the motives of those misguided persons who placed 
what obstacles they could in our path, and also in the way of 
many enlightened men and women who have been engaged in 
this conscientious effort to disseminate the truth. So much- 
it has seemed to the author — justice to all parties imperatively 
demands. 

We lament the existence in our midst of an unlovely spirit, 
which so blinds the mind and blunts the moral sensibilities, 
that the impoverished soul no longer finds it convenient to at- 
tribute worthy and honorable motives to his fellow-men. It 
certainly was not expected that the labors of any one connected 
with the movement would be attributed to a mercenary spirit. 
How have we been enriched while in this service ? Certainly 
not in any way that has a relation to our worldly fortunes, 
humble and uncertain as these may have been in the past. 
Those accustomed to estimate the value of skilled labor will 
be slow to discover any worldly speculation, and they will 
be able to judge how far the writer can have become affluent 
in circumstances and luxurious in his manner of living, from 
the small fund of the Secular Press Bureau. 

Let us here inquire what private aim or selfish purpose can 
the proprietors of the Banner have promoted by their earnest 
and constant devotion to this work? They contributed all 
necessary space for a complete exposition of the objects and 
claims of the Bureau ; they devoted much valuable time to 
this service ; they also performed the duties of treasurers ; kept 
the accounts and published a current record of the subscrip- 
tions received, and for all these services they never made the 
smallest charge. Nor is this all. From the beginning, Luther 



INTRODUCTION. XX111 

Colby and Isaac B. Rich were among the generous contribu- 
tors to the fund. And yet they never so much as once inti- 
mated that they would even accept the smallest return of any 
description for any service they ever rendered. The facts in 
the case utterly preclude the possible intrusion of any selfish 
consideration as an incentive to action. The role of Luther 
Colby in this performance should forever shield his name and 
memory against even the most distant intimation of interested 
motives. 

Our experience has demonstrated that there is but one way 
to reach the multitudes who make war upon Spiritualism : It is 
to be done alo?ie by an intelligent propaga?idism conducted through 
the mediumship of the press of the country. By this means the 
clouds which envelop the common mind, and thus mislead the 
judgment, may be most effectually dissipated. Precisely where 
the darkness exists, the light must be permitted to shine. In a 
most comprehensive sense, the secular press is the lever with 
which the world may be moved. We only require a place to 
stand, and a solid fulcrum, in the form of material support. 
Our limited experience has satisfied us that the plan for using 
the newspaper and literary press, as the medium for the dis- 
semination of the most important facts, principles, and ideas, 
and for the wide diffusion of all spiritual knowledge, is alto- 
gether feasible. The accomplishment of this purpose is no 
longer a problem of doubtful solution. That industry and 
liberality combined will insure complete success, is a fact suf- 
ficiently demonstrated to furnish a rational basis for the pub- 
lic faith. It is only necessary to place the requisite means at 
the disposal of the Bureau, as now constituted, and a wide, 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

powerful, and most beneficent influence may be exerted among 
the millions who seldom or never read a spiritual paper. * 

We entertain the hope that the work which has proved suc- 
cessful on a small scale, may be greatly enlarged in the future.. 
What we most need — and may readily have, if the people are 
so disposed — is a complete working Bureau of Correspondence, 
with the necessary Assistants, and such facilities for extensive work 
as would enable us to occupy more or less space in all important 
journals i?i every part of the country. Indeed, this work can 
be made as extensive as the people will, and need only be 
limited by the means emyloyed in its prosecution. When we 
are reminded that these papers are numbered by thousands ; 
that some of them print from one to two hundred thousand 
copies of each succeeding issue ; and that their aggregate cir- 
culation may be fitly symbolized by the leaves of the forest, 
the rational Spiritualist must perceive that here is the great en- 
gine of power whereby we may — if so determined — reach, in- 
spire, move, and illuminate the universal mind. 



* Our limited space will not permit of the multiplication of examples il- 
lustrative of the influence of the Secular Press Correspondence, but a single 
fact may be more satisfactory than a long argument. The author had oc- 
casion to address a letter to the Editor of an influential paper in the Brit- 
ish Provinces. Before it was otherwise ascertained that it had been pub- 
lished, we received a most earnest letter from Canada, in which the writer 
— a gentleman of intelligence and an entire stranger — stated in substance 
that he had read our correspondence in the Government Organ at Toronto ; 
that it had inspired him with an intense desire to know more of a subject 
which, so far as he had been previously informed, was everywhere treated 
with unmeasured contempt and ridicule. Some time after we received a 
second letter from this gentleman, inclosing money for spiritual books, 
which were forwarded to his address, and he is now believed to be pro- 
foundly interested in the whole subject. 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 

But while the importance of the enterprise and the acknowl- 
edged success of the experiment have been clearly demon- 
strated, it became necessary — at the close of the second year 
of service — to announce the fact that, for the present and the 
immediate future, we could no longer devote our time exclu- 
sively to the prosecution of this work. We have not aban- 
doned the Bureau,which has been re-organized under the direc- 
tion of the American Spiritualist Alliance, with the author 
as President. In following the lead of the Spirit World, sup. 
ported by the friendly counsel and the material aid of many 
friends, and enforced by inclination and judgment, the writer 
earnestly engaged in the work at the beginning, hoping to be 
useful in such public capacity, at the same time having little 
regard to personal considerations and private interests. The 
undersigned would still be devoting his time mainly to the 
same service, but a voice too solemn and imperative to be dis- 
regarded called him to another field of labor. That voice is 
mild and persuasive, but its speech is significant and impres- 
sive. From within the vail it speaks out audibly, and I here 
report some of its words : 

" In the gray twilight of the early morning, a sower went out to 
sow, and we were with him in his labors. The seed scattered 
broadcast germinated, and has now taken root all over the earth. 
Warmed by the vital heat of spiritual influence, all 
' Nature multiplies her fertile growth.' 
To-day the fields prophesy of the harvest that is near. Their 
ripening treasures, waving in the spiritual sunlight, are beautiful 
to look upon. We come now, in the afternoon of this golden 
autumn, to admonish you to bind up your sheaves, before the 
night cometh when your day's work in this field will be done." 



XXVI INTRODUCTION. 

The import of this somewhat figurative language may be so 
apparent already as to require no further elucidation. The 
spirits have given a revelation of their intelligence, and also of 
their power to produce results within the sphere of our practi- 
cal affairs, by making our acquiescence even possible in the 
nature of things. The reader will, perhaps, have inferred that 
the particular work the writer is expected to perform is the 
preparatioji of several volumes for the press, the first of which 
is here submitted to the public. How long we may be so em- 
ployed it is quite impossible to conjecture. The extent of the 
work may very much depend on the writer's physical health, 
and on other matters, of which we can now have, at best, only 
a dim and uncertain perception in coming events and circum- 
stances which already forecast their shadows on the prescient 
mind. 

While the revelations of To-day are to thousands the source 
of new hope and undying consolation, it is not denied that, in 
some instances, they may awaken unpleasant apprehensions. 
Spiritualism often excuses the mistakes and weaknesses of 
poor humanity, but it offers no concealment for the enthroned 
errors and consecrated wrongs of the world. With unsparing 
hand it strikes off the mask from the face of the hypocrite and 
rends the mantle of the self-righteous Pharisee. In its mys- 
terious light and before its unearthly vision the darkest secrets 
of the mind and heart may be disclosed. Men and women of 
depraved habits may tremble when the subject is mentioned, 
fearing that their deeds of darkness may be comprehended in 
its revelations, but the just have nothing to fear. The pure 
in heart love to recline by the fountains of its inspiration ; in- 



INTRODUCTION. XXV11 

nocent maidens and little children slumber while its oracles 
speak, and waking apprehend no evil. 

We cannot attempt to explain all the mental perturbation 
witnessed among men. Precisely how certain minds are un- 
hinged we may not infallibly know. It may be by the mem- 
ory of unworthy deeds, or by impressions derived from a false 
education. The loss of the mental equipoise may be owing to 
the magnitude and weight of a dominant idea, or otherwise 
result from extreme nervous susceptibility and intense cerebral 
excitement. How many have gone mad from a too intense 
and constant application to business ? How many have for- 
ever lost their balance in the depths of their religious devo- 
tions ? And how many more, alas, from " loving not wisely 
but too well ? " Let those who condemn Spiritualism because 
a few persons have been temporarily deranged, whether in 
body, mind, or morals, think of the fearful sacrifices which at- 
tended the great religious movements of past ages. It is pre- 
posterous to denounce the present revolution in the world's 
faith, and yet profess to venerate the names and deeds re- 
corded in sacred history. Moses, Joshua, and David, Con- 
stantine, Peter the Hermit, and Simon de Montfort, offered 
whole hecatombs of human victims on the altars of their re- 
ligion ; while the mortal remains of two millions fertilized the 
battle-fields of the Crusaders ! 

But Spiritualism, as taught in the first and the nineteenth 
centuries, abhors the bloody sacrifice ! It requires its faith- 
ful disciples to leave the polluted shrines and " worship the 
Father in spirit and in truth." In the light of a rational 
Spiritualism, the laws of Nature are the oracles of God ; each 



XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 

form of beauty and use is a revelation ; every curious process 
is a sermon ; the enlightened spirit is the temple and altar of 
the Divine : a sincere aspiration or grateful emotion is a de- 
vout prayer, a true prophecy or a solemn psalm, and all chari- 
table deeds are appropriate benedictions. The enlightened 
and true friends of this reverent and rational Spiritualism hope 
and trust that it will gloriously triumph by loving words, in- 
spired thoughts, and Godlike deeds, and that its white banner 
— already unfurled in the golden morning of Freedom and 
Immortality — may yet become the ensign of the World I 

The Author, 
i Sherman Avenue, 
Newark, N. J , June 28, 1882. 



CONTENTS. 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. 

PHILOSOPHY OF THE INSPIRATIONS OF GENIUS. 

FROM THE HARTFORD (CONN.) DAILY TIMES. 



PAGE 



Relations of the Human Mind to the Spirit-World— The Inspirations of Genius— 
The Spiritual Element in Poetry— Illustrative Examples — Virgil and the 
^Eneid— Shakespeare's Recognition of the Spirits— Milton on the Heavenly- 
Messengers — Testimony of Dr. Samuel Johnson — Coleridge and Christabel — 
Shelley and Adonais — Wordsworth on Spiritual Insight — Campbell on 
Prophetic Visions — The Cloud of Immortal Witnesses — The Spirits in 
Bailey's Festus — Irving's "Midnight Musings" on Spiritualism — Conclu- 



RELIGION OF FAITH AND FASHION. 

REV. DR. JOHN HALL AND THE LOGIC OF THE PULPIT. 

FROM TRUTH, JANUARY 20, 1880. 

Millions in one Christian Temple— Sufferers from Cold, Hunger, and Nakedness 
in its Shadow — Who will save the Neglected Ones ? — The Doctor discourses 
on " Faith and Science "—A Theologian answers Huxley— Who will answer 
the Cry of the Poor? — Does the Bible lead Modern Science? — Aromatic Airs 
and bad Logic at $20,000 a Year— Relations of the Serpent to Popular Theol- 
ogy— Ireland's War on Snakes— St. Patrick slays the last in the Lake of Kil- 
larney— A Doctor of Divinity against Science and History — The Office of 
Science is to Formulate the Truth 18 

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF SPIRITUALISM. 

WANDERING AND CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS. 

FROM THE ROCHESTER (n. Y.) DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, FEB. 22, 1880. 

Rambler on Spiritualism — The Great Question of the Ages — Disputing the Evi- 
dence of the Senses— Assumed Premises and Illogical Reasoning— Illusions 
and Hallucinations — Sensorial Evidence the Bases of Science and Jurispru- 
dence — Rambler Losing both Sense and Reason, Strikes at the Foundation 
—Important Facts in Illustration— Amazing Power of the Spirits— A Sudden 
Conversion — Cogent Appeal to the Understanding 23 

xxix 



XXX CONTENTS. 

MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

REVIEW OF REV. JOSEPH COOK'S LECTURES. 

FROM THE BOSTON HERALD, FEB. 28, 1880. 

PAGE 

The Religion of Jesus rests on Spiritual Facts — What Spiritualism Comprehends 
—Author of the Monday Lectures not a Spiritual Man— Crude Classification 
of Spiritualists — Religion of the Future — Mr. Cook lost in the fog of Super- 
naturalism— Man belongs to the Natural Sphere— Another call for a Scientific 
Investigation — Scientists answer, but the Clergy do not hear — The Quality of 
Charity 34 

THE SPIRITUAL CONTROVERSY. 

A MODERN SAMSON PULLING AT THE PILLARS. 

FROM THE CINCINNATI (OHIO) DAILY ENQUIRER, MARCH 22, l88o. 

Independence of the Enquirer— Judge and Mrs. A. G. W. Carter— Hon. Nelson 
Cross — The Ex-President of Columbia University— Charmed Life of Spiritual- 
ism — Cicero on Divination— A Distinction without a Difference— Philological 
and Theological Exposition— Looking into the dead Past for Wisdom— More 
Syntax than Sense — Has Divinity lost the Power of Speech ? — Fox Sisters, 
Professor Morse and the Scientists— Dr. Samson's Explanation of the Rap- 
pings— Explosive Discharges of Nerve Force '.—Science and the Experimen- 
tum Crucis— The Doctor's Unphilosophical Classification — Demonstration 
versus Dogmatism— The Living Oracles are never Dumb 4i 

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 

PROF. HENRY KIDDLE AND HIS CRITICS. 

FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE. 

Following the Example of Judge Edmonds— Free Thought and Moral Courage- 
Resignation of the Superintendent of Schools Suggested— A Blow at Relig- 
ious Liberty — Hypocrisy Strains at the Gnat— Gross Injustice of the Opposi- 
tion — Mr. Kiddle Defends his Book— Experience Matures the Judgment 
—Views of the Ancient Philosophers— Important Ground of Argument- 
Necessary Imperfections of Mediumship — Intelligence Limited to the 
Measure ot its Instruments— The Law of Universal Expression— Cavilers 
Wrangle while Philosophers Reason 51 

OPPOSITION IN THE PROVINCES. 

"STRIKE, BUT HEAR ! " 

FROM THE TORONTO (CANADA) MAIL, MARCH 29, 1880. 

Freedom of Speech and an Honest Judgment— Sergeant Cox — Mr. William 
Crookes, F.R.S.— Alfred R. Walace, F.R.S.— Testimony of Eminent Authors 
and Distinguished Scientists — William Howitt — Professor Varley — W. 
Stainton Moses, M.A., of the University College, London— George Sex- 
ton, LL.D.— The German Professors— Fechner, Fichte, Zollner, and Ulrici— 



CONTENTS. XXXI 

PAGE 

Men who are Treated as Lunatics— The Jugglers and Counterfeiters— Mis- 
representations of the Press- Spirit of an English Poet— The Horoscope of 
his Country— The Prophetic Problem— The Question of the Ages— Southey's 
Death on Earth and Birth in Spirit-Life— Highly Poetic Description— Con- 
clusion 56 

SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. 

REVIEW OF PROF. WUNDT'S LETTER. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT. 

Progress of Spiritualism in Germany— Amour propre of American Scientists- 
Prof. Wundt's Apprehensions— What Constitutes a Scientific Authority— Dis- 
qualified by his own Standard — Youmans on Scientific Ignorance — Where 
are the Magnets ? — The Sleeve-gammon Hypothesis— Comparison of the 
Facts with the Law— Wundt Waging War on his Principles— Limits of the 
Leipzig Professor— Comprehensive Views of Nature — Supernatural ism a 
Solecism — Natural Laws never Suspended — Illustrations from Nature — 
Diversity of Forms and Phenomena — Foundations of Natural Science — The 
Everlasting Drift— Perpetual Change of Conditions— Law of the Rock, the 
Tree and the Fish — The Wild goose Higher Law— Voluntary Powers of Man 
—Power of Mind over Matter — Attitude of Spiritualism Misrepresented— Ar- 
rogance of Modern Scientists Rebuked — The Fields of Observation — The 
Psychology of the Future 65 

THE SPIRITUAL AGITATION. 

REV. JOSEPH COOK'S MONDAY LECTURES REVIEWED. 

FROM THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT, MARCH 12, 1880. 

Prof. Edwin D. Mead— Rev. Joseph Cook's Lectures— Visions of a Church 
Minister — Mild Reproofs and Pious Lamentation — How Jesus Passed 
Through Closed Doors — An Angel's Autograph — Regenerating Tide of 
Spiritualism— Veneration of Sacred Relics— Prof. Austin Phelps, and Rev. 
Charles Beecher— Prof. W. Wundt, of Leipzig— Dr. Robert Hare as a Scient- 
ist — Lights of the American Association — Professors Agassiz, Mitchel and 
Rogers— Pierce, Davies and Winslow— Unworthy Conduct of the Scientific 
Association — An Eminent Professor of Natural Philosophy — Makes no Dis- 
tinction Between Superstition and Spiritualism— In the Coils of a " Mon- 
strous Hydra " — Shades of Hercules and St. Patrick— Beatification of 
Ignorance 80 

THE TRIBUNE ON SPIRITUALISTS. 

POLITICS, FASHION AND SPORTING AT THE FRONT. 

WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE. 

Note from Mr. Whitelaw Reid— Vindication of Spiritualism Declined— Unwrit- 
ten Law of the Press— Fashionable and Vicious Topics Preferred— Subjects 
which secure instant Attention— Angry Divinity and depraved Humanity- 
Spiritualism hospitable to New Ideas— It Rationalizes Philosophy and Spirit- 



XXX11 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

ualizes Religion— The Ghosts from Hades— Spiritual Light and Liberty- 
Related as Cause and Effect— The Tree by the Crystal River— Where Spirit- 
ualism most Prevails— Observations on the Old World— England, France and 
Germany— Views of Heaven— Sensuous Conception of the New Jerusalem- 
Materialists demand the Evidence of the Senses— Wrestling with an Angel. . 89 

SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. 

A CALIFORNIA JACK-WITH-A-LANTERN. 

WRITTEN FOR THE ARGONAUT OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

A Critic's Views of Science— Relations of Facts to Scientific Systems— Horology 
and Instruments for Measuring Time— Mistaken Views of the Argonaut— 
Friendly Criticism— Hypothesis of Fraud and Jugglery— Theory of Involun- 
tary Cerebral Action— A Harvard Professor with the Spirits— Science on and 
Dignity under the Table— An Epic Poem from the Spirits— Remarkable Im- 
provisation — The Solar Harp — Doctrine of Chances Illustrated — Is Meteorol- 
ogy a Science ?— Comparison of Physical and Spiritual Phenomena— Facts in 
Science which Centuries may not Repeat 98 

MODERN SPIRITUALISM DEFENDED. 

IS THE ADVANCE GOING BACKWARD ? 

FROM THE HULMEVILLE (PA.) DELAWARE VALLEY ADVANCE, AUG. 19, l88r. 

" Little is the wisdom, when the flight 
So runs against all reason." — Shak. 
The War on Religious Freedom — Hulmeville proposes Limits — Striking at the 
Protestant Reformation— Ignoring the Declaration of Independence— Science 
opposed to Religious Despotism — The Throne and the Tribune — Case of 
William Twining— Derangement and Death from Disease— From the Uni- 
versity to Bedlam — How too much Love kills People— Shall we stop Loving ? 
— Religious Lunatics — Shall we turn Infidel? — Neshaminy Falls Mass-Meet- 
ing — Christians die suddenly— Shall we suppress the Christian Religion?— 
Black Sheep in the Fold — Bishop Onderdonk and the Episcopacy — Infallible 
Signs of Dissolution — Where Carelessness is Crime 112 

TRUTH AGAINST ITS ENEMIES. 

ANSWER TO THE AUTHOR OF A SPIRITUALISTIC TRAGEDY. 

WRITTEN FOR THE PHILADELPHIA SUNDAY PRESS AND MIRROR. 

" Our castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn.' 1 '' —Shakespeare. 
Misrepresentations of the Press — Mr. Twining's Case again— Time-Serving 
Patrons of Error — Vulgar Ignorance and Prejudice — Opposition to New 
Ideas of Religion — Wise Sayings of a Spiritual Reformer — Death by Disease 
no Tragedy— Assumed Responsibility of J. W. Colville— The Patriarch's 
Ladder — Insanity and Orthodoxy — The Lunatic Demands a Vicarious Sacri- 
fice—A real Tragedy in the Freeman Family— Critic's Opposition to Dancing 
— Examples from Sacred History— David Beats the Scotch in his Lively Reel 
—He Selects Another Man's Partner— Blunders in the Figure and Breaks 



CONTENTS. XXX1U 

PAGE 

one of the Commandments — Customs of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, 
and Romans— Solomon Sanctions Dancing— Celebrating the Prodigal Son's 
Return — Shallow Views of the Press and Mirror — This Critic Rivals the 
Teutonic Nursery Legends— A Christian Strives with '' Faithful Abraham " 
— He Wins the Bloody Championship— Infamous Appeal to the Authorities — 
Editor of the Press and Mirror Disloyal to the Constitution 121 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS CRITICS. 

AN UNJUST CRITICISM OF MR. HENRY KIDDLE REVIEWED. 

FROM THE GATE CITY, KEOKUK, IOWA. 

The late Superintendent of Schools— A Critic's offensive Misrepresentations- 
Mr. Kiddle was never Crazy— He was not Removed— A most efficient Man 
Resigned an Important Place— The Question of Scholarship— An Editor's 
Distress about Syntax — The Untitled Journalist versus a Master of Arts — }Aen 
who are paid to write bad English— The Josh Billings School— Ho^ Charity 
is illustrated at Gate City 131 

DEAD LETTER OF DOCTOR GRAVES. 

MAGNETISM, CLAIRVOYANCE, AND DEMONISM. 

FROM THE VAN BUREN (ARK.) PRESS, OCT. 16, 1880. 

Dr. Graves Visits Charles Foster— Dr. Samuel Watson's Lectures— Moving of 
the Waters — Ithunel and Zephon— Commission from Gabriel — Satan in Mis- 
chief—Arrested by the Heavenly Detectives— Resurrection at Memphis- 
Mistakes of the Spirits— Mr. Greeley's Chirography— Heterodox Spirits— 
What Dr. Graves does not Know— Mesmer at the Court of Louis XVI.— Pro- 
fessorship of Animal Magnetism at Berlin— Cuvier, Laplace, Humboldt, 
Coleridge, Dugald Stewart, and Galvani — Relations of Vital Magnetism to 
Psycho-physiology— Power of Will over Magnetic Sensitives— Limitations 
of the Wonder-working Agent — Clairvoyance Explained — Invisible Psycho- 
logical Operators— Dr. Graves on " Demonism "— " Hark, from the Tombs ! " 
— Demonology of the Ancient Greeks and Modern Spiritualists 136 

THE DEATH PENALTY. 

ARGUMENT FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. 

FROM THE DAILY TIMES, HARTFORD, CONN., OCT. 13, 1880. 

The Herald and the Death Penalty— Criminal Code and the Law-making Power 
— The Dangerous Classes — Capital Punishment Unchristian — Is Moses our 
Law-giver?— Revenge is not Justice— Relations of the Individual to the 
State— Philosophy of Democratic Government— Assumed and Dangerous 
Prerogatives— The State has no Right to take Life— Law makes the Public 
a Cowardly Assassin — Logic of the Duello — The Homicide's Defense— 
Sacredness of Human Life— Society's False Plea of Self-preservation— Naked 
Fallacy Exposed— Same Moral Law Applies to the Citizen and the Republic 
—Solemn Mockery of a Religion of Love— Behold the Sacrilegious Incon- 

B* 



XXXIV CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

gruities !— Praying for our Enemies in the Insulted Name of Jesus— Growing 
Hemp and Building Gibbets— The Sacrament and the Execution— Grim, 
Ghastly, and Terrible Spectacle ! 147 



MEETING THE ENEMY. 

CHARGES OF THE TABERNACLE PASTOR EXAMINED. 

FROM THE BROOKLYN (N. Y.) DAILY EAGLE, NOV. 21, 1880. 

Boanerges of the Modern Pulpit— Nuptials in Paradise— Dr. Talmage on Mono- 
gamy — He Charges Spiritualists with Free Love — Unfortunate Choice of a 
Theme— Is the Old Testament Opposed to Polygamy ?— Scriptural Illustra- 
tions—Household of the Hebrew Prince, Abraham— Sarah, Hagar, and 
Keturah — The Poet-Minstrel of Israel — Seventeen Wives and Concubines — 
Royal Harem of Solomon — Worshiping the Gods of his Mistresses— Divine 
Certificate of his Moral Health — Humble Imitators at Salt Lake — Seraglio on 
the Bosphorus — A Gospel Shepherd in the Shades of the Cyprians — What 
Spiritualism Demands— Subordination of the Animal Appetites and Passions— 
What and Where are the " Carrion Crows ?" — Beauties of the Turkish Harem 
— A Clergyman Testifies that they are the Daughters of Christian Parents — 
Orthodoxy and the Penitentiary — Falling from Grace— Prison Standard of 
Faith and Morals — Loose Screws in the Social Platform— Attempts to Iden- 
tify Free Love and Spiritualism — Unclean Birds of Modern Babylon — Fowls 
that came to Roost but found no Rest — Presbyterianism and the Oneida 
Community — Saints Bankrupt in Righteousness — Spiritualism, the Angel 
Standing in the Sun — Consecration of the Home Life by a Layman — A 
Modest Spiritualist the most Effective Preacher — John Howard Payne, 
Author of " Sweet Home." 157 

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 

HARMONY OF FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND RELIGION. — 
THE ACTIVE FORCE IN THE MORAL WORLD. 

FROM THE (NEWBURYPORT) MERRIMAC VALLEY VISITOR. 

The Andover Professor on Spiritualism— The Spirits at Stratford— Rev. Eliakim 
Phelps, D.D. — Irreverent Handling of the Sacred Canon — Fantoccini by the 
Invisibles in the Wardrobe— Demons Suspected of Arson— Waiting for the 
Savants- -Falling back on Demonology — Science in Despair and Theology 
Desperate — Where are the angels of Mercy ? — Tartarean Jail Delivery — 
Power of Spirits over the Elements — Views of the Ancient Greeks— Testi- 
mony of Philosophers, Apostles, Pagan Historians and Christian Fathers — 
Truth about Demons— Visions of a Theological Professor— How he Views 
Modern Spiritualism— Disorderly Manifestations Among the Ancients— Sig- 
nificant Examples from the Scriptures — Lying under a Divine Commission — 
Unclean and Dumb Spirits— Swinish Affinities— Paul's Indictment of the 
Early Christians — Infidels at the Baptism and the Communion — Low 
Mediums of Sacred History — Contest between Science and Theology — En- 
larging the Domain of Science — The Great Reformation 171 



CONTENTS. XXXV 



ANOTHER WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 

DAYLIGHT APPARITION OF A DEPARTED SPIRIT. 

FROM THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE OF FEBRUARY 6, l88l. 

PAGE 

Vision of a Prominent Merchant — Sensation on Brooklyn Heights — An unex- 
pected Visitor from the Spirit-World— A Son returns to his Father's House 
in Daylight— Acknowledged Integrity of the Witness— Value of his Testi- 
mony—Spiritual Facts and Sensorial Phantoms — Positive Recognition — Shall 
we See and not Believe ? — Philosophy of Mental Phantasmagoria — Coming 
when not thought of by the Observer — The Apparition suddenly Vanishes — 
Not the result of Diseased Organic Action— Phenomenon irreconcilable with 
the Laws of Physics — The Fact due to Spiritual Presence and Agency — A 
Conviction that rests on Evidence of the Sense of Sight— A Christian Gentle- 
man and shrewd Business Man— Truth regardless of Popularity 194 

THE WATCHMAN ON SPIRITUALISM. 

FALLACY OF POPULAR OBJECTIONS EXPOSED. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, FEB. 12, 1881. 

Theory of Jugglery Abandoned — New Testament Demonology — Conquest of the 
World by the Spirits— Looking at Truth Through a Cloud— Has God Re- 
signed his Scepter ? — False Views and Unreasonable Demands — Imperfection 
of all Human Instruments— A Stupid Devotion to what is Old— Blind Faith 
in Sacred Fictions — Closing the eyes to Present Facts — Reasoning with the 
Watchman— Will he Open his Shutters ? 199 

SHAKING THE ANCIENT TOWERS. 

"WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?" 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, MARCH 5, l88l. 

A Baptist's View of the German Professors — A Watchman Blinded by Lightning 
— Important Admissions— Cold Comfort for the Enemy — Mushroom Specula- 
tions — Indignation of Saints— Policy of Priestcraft — Falling back on the 
Dark Ages — Hymn of the Battle — Verdict of Christian Investigators — 
Asleep on the Watch-Towers of Zion — Humiliation of the Church — Fox Lake 
Representative — Reign of the Arch-fiend — Superstition yields to Science — 
Symbol of long Suffering — Crown of our Rejoicing 207 

SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 

DR. BRITTAN REVIEWS REV. DR. BOSTWICK HAWLEY. 

FROM THE SARATOGA (n. Y.) EAGLE, FEB. 26, l88l. 

Dr. Hawley on Spiritualism— Great Learning and Little Logic— Motion without 
Progress — The Doctor's Faith in Solomon — Opposition to Liberalism in Re-* 
ligion— Quoting from the Apocatastasis— Airing the Greek and Latin Classics 
— Ancient Sibyls and Priestesses— Death of the Old— The Paid Mourners- 
Paganism and Christianity— Polytheism and Spiritualism— Plurality of Gods 
reduced to a Divinity of Three Persons— Truth the only Authority— Careful 



XXXVI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Review of the Scripture Argument— The Signs do not follow the Clergy- 
Weighed and found Wanting— Spiritualism of the New Testament— Corre- 
spondence with the Spirit-World — One Hundred Thousand Letters Answered 
through one Medium— Heaven and Hell within Speaking Distance— Discus- 
sion between Abraham and Dives— Shall we insult the Angelic Visitors ?— 
Blindness of Theological Dogmatism— Shameless and unnatural Cruelty— 
The Living taught to Dishonor their Immortal Kindred, Spurn their Loved 
Ones, and Defame the Angels of Mercy— Crisis in the History of the Church 
— The Sacrilege of the Priesthood 213 

THE MYSTERY REVEALED. 

A NEW CLERICAL RATTLE FOR JUVENILE MINDS. 

FROM THE DAILY ADVERTISER, AUBURN, N. Y., MARCH 23, 1881. 

The Last Theory of the Rappings— Original if not True— The Mystery Unveiled 
by a Presbyterian Minister — Excitement at Hydesville — What Burgess 
Knows about a Bedstead— The Cunning of the Foxes— Pilgrims at the Mecca 
of Spiritualism— Expose of the Trick— A Divine Uncovers the Mystery of 
Iniquity— "The Most Gigantic Sell "—The Rickety Old Bedstead never 
Moved— Testimony of a Pious Witness— He says it " has Doubtless Returned 
to Dust " — In a more Vital Sense it still Lives— Like John Brown's Soul, the 
Spirit of that Bedstead "is Marching On"— The Rappings are all over the 
World — Burgess "Would not Disparage Spiritualism "—He only Offers 
"this Little Scrap of History "—Legend of the Seven Sleepers— The Last 
One Wakes from a Nightmare 237 

THE OPPOSITION IN BALTIMORE. 

UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF THE CHRISTIAN PULPIT. 

WRITTEN FOR THE BALTIMORE AMERICAN. 

Rev. Joel T. Rossiter on Spiritualism— The Seance at Endor— The Medium 
Vindicated— A Royal dead-head Investigator— Mistakes of the Preacher— A 
Divine treats Samuel coldly— He is not sure the Prophet put in an Appearance 
—Bold stand of Rev. Dr. Butler— How he Exorcised the Spirits— The Soul- 
less Body at Endor— Puppet-show at the Transfiguration— How the Lord is 
supposed to have deceived Jesus, Peter, James and John— The Platitudes of 
the Pulpit — Character of the Religious Opposition to Spiritualism — A Grave 
Divine quotes a Vulgar Jester 243 

THE WAY SPIRITUALISM IS EXPOSED. 

HOW THEY PLAY THE FARCE IN DUBLIN- 

WRITTEN FOR THE SHAUGHRAUN, IRELAND. 

A Bogus Medium on the Rampage— The Pious Mountebanks— Serving the Lord 
and the Jugglers— The Farce of Exposure— Saints pay for the Exhibition- 
Mysterious personal Disappearance— The fine Art of Deception— How a 
Rogue pursued his Occupation — The Secret let out in Ireland Fools practic- 
ing their Folly— Madmen rave while the Stars shine and Heaven is Serene- 
Lights en the Headlands of Time— An Angel standing in the Sun — 255 



CONTENTS. XXXV11 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 

ANOTHER BOLD ASSAILANT SHIVERS HIS LANCE. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT. 

PAGE 

Spiritual Phenomena, Subjective and Objective — The Seer of Stockholm — Rev. 
John Wesley — Father Bjerring and the Oriental Church Magazine — Modern 
Spiritualism — Battle with Materialism — Infidelity giving up the Ghost— The 
Masters of Modern Science and Philosophy — The Owens Discover their Im- 
mortality — Dr. Hare's Spiritoscope Leads to his Conversion — Prof. James J. 
Mapes, LL.D., Surrenders at discretion— English Scientists and German 
Philosophers— Hiding the Truth and Falsification of History— " The Evil 
Eye"— Fox Family Fictions by an unknown Writer— Is the Shade of Mun- 
chausen here ? — The Tangled Web— Dr. Kane, the Arctic Explorer — His Af- 
fection for Margaretta— Love Surrenders to Personal Ambition— Conclusion. 260 

JOURNALISTIC IGNORANCE ILLUSTRATED. 

OPPOSITION OF THE NEW YORK DAILY TIMES. 

FROM THE HARTFORD (CONN.) DAILY TIMES, SEPT. 8, l88l. 

Justice and Liberality of the Hartford Times— The Moral Courage that respects 
the Truth — The New York Times— A. Striking Contrast — An Expert without 
Experience— Dr. Beard as a Psychological Authority— Testimony of George 
Ripley and Horace Greeley — Hollow pretensions of Doctors Beard and Ham- 
mond— What they Discover was long since Known to Thousands— The Tinted 
Ignorance of the History of Psycho-magnetic Phenomena— Blind Faith in its 
solitary Witness— A Metaphysical Question — Dogmatism of the New York 
Times — Analysis and Criticism of the Editor's Views— Illustrative Examples 
and Explanation of Principles— Disposition of Jugglery and the Jugglers- 
Sciolists Discounting the Claims of Eminent Scientists — Calling the wrong 
Witness— Testimony of Clairvoyance to the Truth of Spiritualism 273 

DECLINING THE RESPONSIBILITY. 

IMMUNITY FOR OLD FALSEHOODS. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT. 

Policy of the Newspaper Press— False Charge against Spiritualists— John A. 
Lansing's pious Speculation— " Devouring Widows' Houses" — Religious 
Fanatics with an Eye to Business— How Mrs. Upham was made a Victim- 
Fraud under the Cloak of Religion— Drawing the Papers in the Lord- 
Lunacy or Hypocrisy— As^ury Park JournaVs Testimony— A Fair Con- 
federate -Mary at the Ocean Grove Meetings— Parties all Members of Ortho- 
dox Churches 285 

GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 

AN EDITOR DEFENDS SATAN AND DEFAMES SPIRITUALISTS. 

WRITTEN FOR THE " HERALD AND GLOBE," RUTLAND,, VERMONT. 

Spiritualists Dishonored and the Devil Defended— Important Concessions by 



XXXV111 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Prof. Phelps— Great Extremity of the Theologians— The Congregationalist 
as a City of Refuge — Poisoned Arrows from a Bomb-proof Retreat — 
Ignorance and Supernaturalism— Exploded by a Philosophical Explanation 
—Angels Imprisoned and Devils Emancipated— Blasphemy against the Holy 
Spirit— Bold Assumptions and Rotten Logic— Evidence Worthless when the 
Witness knows nothing— Impatience and Intolerance— Real Facts Rejected 
and the true Witnesses Defamed— Power of the Spirits— Counterfeits are 
Evidence of Something Genuine— Theory of Jugglery— Hermann and Heller 
—Are only feeble natures Inspired?— Sick People of Biblical History— Modern 
Illustrations— Visit from the Author of the Raven — Experience of Death and 
Reception in the Spirit-World— Song of the Angel Lenore — A Spirit-Maiden's 
Song of Shelley— Coleridge Wakes the Chords of his Orphic Lyre 290 

LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 

SHADOWS UPON THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, BOSTON, MASS. 

One-sided Freedom of Discussion — A practical Commentary on Justice — Will 
Hindostan send a Missionary to Rutland ?— Editor Bigelow's ex parte Con- 
troversy — He Rejects our Reply and writes a Letter— He gives Illustrations 
in Rhetoric— Taking his Cue from Professor Phelps— Senses and their Func- 
tions—Thomas L. Harris and the English Bards— Distinguished Converts to 
Spiritualism — Bigelow on Nervous Exaltation— Shakespeare and Milton- 
Spirits in Hamlet and Macbeth — "Midsummer Night's Dream" — Bard of 
Avon on Spirits and Angels— Milton's Spiritual Drama— Michael and Gabriel 
— Obfuscation in the Sanctum— An Editor's habitual Craze— Fraud and De- 
lusion the Materialist's Credenda— Editorial Gasconade— Appeal to the Pas- 
sions of the Populace — Midnight views of Journalistic Responsibility — Retir- 
ing under a Cloud 309 

SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 

HOW SPIRITUALISM IS TREATED IN MINNEAPOLIS. 

WRITTEN FOR THE MINNEAPOLIS (MINN.) EVENING JOURNAL. 

A Man of Business Testifies— He Sees the Facts under Test Conditions— Decep- 
tion said to be Impossible— Jumping at a Conclusion— Nature Preserves her 
Method— Men who Voice their Ignorance— Illustrations of Natural Law- 
Intellectual Juvenility— Jesus more Natural because Spiritual— The Investi- 
gator Theorizes — Hypothesis of a Distinct Order of Beings — Believing 
against Evidence— Ignorance and Dogmatism— Spirits as Educators and 
Physicians— Their Deeds of Charity— Saving the Life of Hon. N. P. Tal- 
madge— Bursting of Commodore Stockton's Gun— Reformed by a Spirit- 
Lives saved by Spirit-warnings — Emancipation Proclamation — Lincoln 
Inspired to Break the Chains of Slavery — Immortality Demonstrated 
—Powers of the Spirits— Laws of Spiritual Attraction— Baiting with Decep- 
tion and Catching Lies — The Subject in its True Light — Waiting for 
Heavenly Interpreters of Spiritual Mysteries 325 



CONTENTS. XXXIX 

OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 

HOW THEY BECOME VISIBLE AND TANGIBLE. 

BY S. B. BRITTAN. 

PAGE 

Introductory Observations— Order of Natural Development Illustrated— The 
Noblest Work Unfinished— The Spirit Visitors of All Ages— Absolute Reality 
of the Phenomena— Citation of Facts — Testimony of History and Experience 
— Startling Illustrations— Ben Jonson Entertains his Guests — Stance of the 
" Miracle Circle"— Zal phi, the Greek Girl— A Being of Unearthly Beauty— 
A Retired Merchant Announces his own Death— Classification of the Phe- 
nomena—Opening the Interior Avenues of Sensation— Psychological Pictures 
— Spiritual Transfigurations — The Question of Materialization — Philosophical 
Exposition— Critical Review of the Facts- Extremes of Skepticism and 
Credulity — How Spirits Operate on our Senses— Illustrations from Cicero 
and Virgil— Weighing a Spirit in Vermont— How the Indian Maid may Turn 
the Scale — A Conundrum for the Philosophers — One Law governs all 
Corporeal Bodies — Apparitions of the Living Explained — Superstition re- 
tires to Congenial Night — Daylight Comes with Spiritual Science — Affiliation 
of Congenial Souls 339 

THE MATERIALIZATION QUESTION. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, JULY 3, 1880 . 379 

APPENDIX A. 
REPLY TO HON. THOMAS R. HAZARD. 

REVIEW OF THE CRITICS AND THE SITUATION. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, JULY IO, 1880 383 

REJOINDER TO THOMAS R. HAZARD. 

OUR FINAL ANSWER TO OUR REVIEWER. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, OCT. 16, 1880 390 

APPENDIX B. 
THE WESTERN SPIRITUAL PRESS 4 io 

APPENDIX C. 
PLEADING TO THE INDICTMENT. 

FROM THE RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, MAY 29, 1880 424 

THE GRAND ARMY OF STRAW! 

MY ANSWER TO HUDSON TUTTLE 430 



xl 



CONTENTS. 
THE OFFERED EXPLANATION. 

A POET CLAIMS HIS LICENSE IN HIS LOGIC. 

PAGE 

MY ANSWER TO J. O. BARRETT 436 

APPENDIX D. 
BEFORE THE NEW YORK CONFERENCE. 

EDITOR- AT LARGE WORK UNDER DISCUSSION. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, JAN. 8, l88l 44O 

DR. BRITTAN'S ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS, 

DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING IN NEW YORK, 1 88 1. 

CLAIMS OF THE SECULAR PRESS BUREAU 444 

APPENDIX E. 
OPINIONS OF DISTINGUISHED SPIRITUALISTS- ••• 453 

VOICES OF THE PEOPLE. 

POPULAR ESTIMATE OF THE SECULAR PRESS BUREAU 466 

VIEWS OF THE PRESS. 

DR. BRITTAN AND THE "TIMES." 477 

APPENDIX F. 
VOICES FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

THE PRESS AND THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE 488 

APPENDIX G. 
FRATERNAL SALUTATION. 

TO LUTHER COLBY, NESTOR OF THE SPIRITUAL PRESS 499 

THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE FUND 502 



BATTLE-GROUND 



Spiritual Reformation 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. 

PHILOSOPHY OF THE INSPIRATIONS OF GENIUS. 

FROM THE HARTFORD (CONN.) DAILY TIMES. 

Relations of the Human Mind to the Spirit- World— The Inspirations of Genius— The 
Spiritual Element in Poetry — Illustrative Examples — Virgil and the yEneid— Shake- 
speare's Recognition of the Spirits— Milton on the Heavenly Messengers— Testi- 
mony of Dr. Samuel Johnson— Coleridge and Christabel— Shelley and Adonais — 
Wordsworth on Spiritual Insight — Campbell on Prophetic Visions — The Cloud of 
Immortal Witnesses — The Spirits in Bailey's Festus — Irving's " Midnight Musings " 
on Spiritualism — Conclusion. 

'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 

And intimates eternity to man. — Addison. 

To the Editor of the Daily Times : 

THE ordinary or more familiar operations of the human 
mind are generally accepted as the measure and stand- 
ard of its normal activity and capacity. Accordingly, when- 
ever the faculties exhibit unusual intensity and power, or are 
exercised on subjects which far transcend the range of popu- 
lar thought, even the noblest efforts are liable to be regarded 
as abnormal eccentricities. It was long since proved — if the 
vote of the majority can settle a question of this nature — that 
the multitudes who occupy the plane of the common mind 
are preeminently compos mentis. Having no decided mental 
and moral qualities to distinguish them one from another, 
they conclude that they are free from angularities, and are 
most symmetrically developed. Being self-constituted judges 
of others, as well as of themselves, they assume the right to 



4 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

decide who is crazy and who is devilish. They seldom or 
never question the senses nor the judgment of those who are 
free from new ideas ; but the man who dreamed last night of 
the next grand discovery, whether it be a new continent, 
another planet, or an additional motive power, is treated as a 
visionary this morning, though the day may realize all that 
his dream foreshadowed. 

The world regards its own with especial favor. In every 
age the man who has approved the existing government, how- 
ever oppressive ; who has served the established religion, how- 
ever corrupt ; and defended the prevailing philosophies and 
customs, however superficial and absurd, has been the ac- 
credited example of human consistency, and perhaps the or- 
acle of the people. The most devout worshiper in the tem- 
ple of Art ; the wisest philosopher of his time ; the founders 
of new sciences and the advocates of the latest and noblest 
reforms, are often treated as mere enthusiasts, and accused at 
once of profaning the altars of the living and dishonoring the 
memory of the dead. Men of sense are weary of the repeti- 
tion of this solemn, senseless farce ; but it furnishes knaves 
with congenial employment and fools with agreeable entertain- 
ment, and so the play goes on. The inspired teachers of every 
age and nation — in whose souls the thoughts of archetypal 
worlds and the revolutions of earth and time are born — have 
been derided and condemned ; and yet the thoughtless world, 
in its rude and sensual delirium, scourges, incarcerates, and 
crucifies its benefactors and its saviors ! 

The idea appears to be widely entertained that the world is 
chiefly indebted to a diseased action of the human mind for 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. 5 

the results which have contributed most essentially to its own 
illumination and the advancement of modern civilization. 
The proudest monuments of art ; the discoveries in physical 
science ; and the progress in moral, metaphysical and spiritual 
philosophy ; no less than the airy visions and ideal concep- 
tions of the poet, have been the legitimate offspring of those 
who were denominated dreamers — until the great thoughts 
which eluded the grasp of cotemporaneous millions were sim- 
plified and systematized for the instruction of the common 
mind. Those who give birth to original ideas are often 
anathematized, while those who subsequently determine their 
practical application in material forms of use are honored as 
the benefactors of mankind. The world is alike unjust in its 
judgment and blind in its idolatry. The miserable hypothe- 
sis by which a scientific materialism attempts to solve the 
problem before us lies in our way, but it may be speedily dis- 
sected and removed. It is conjectured that a morbid irri- 
tability of certain portions of the brain occasions great func- 
tional intensity and power ; hence the convergence of mental 
forces as exhibited in the production of the mind's most 
brilliant and enduring memorials. 

Thus it is virtually assumed, that only those who— in re- 
spect to their intellectual progress — creep on the earth ex- 
hibit a healthy activity and a normal development. If one 
has a disposition to soar as well — to ascend into the ethereal 
realms — or is gifted with a power to unlock the secrets of Na- 
ture and unveil the mysteries of the Heavens, he is at once 
presumed to be physically and mentally diseased. If he dares 
to make new discoveries in unfrequented realms ; to exercise 



O THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

any spiritual faculty of his nature ; or once ventures to pass 
through 

" That intermediate door 
Betwixt the different planes of sensuous form 
And form insensuous," 

— he is at once suspected of being unsound in body and 
mind, and without ceremony included in the sick list ! This 
is not an exaggerated statement. It is a fact, that not only 
the medical faculty — more especially of the allopathic school 
— but the representatives of physical science and popular the- 
ology have been wont to regard the vision of the seer, or clair- 
voyant, whether naturally developed or induced by artificial 
processes, as the result of existing nervous derangement or 
abnormal cerebral excitement. Thus the clearest proofs of 
the divine origin, spiritual nature, and immortal destiny of the 
human mind are ascribed to disease / In attempting to dis- 
pose of all modern spiritual experiences in this manner, they 
boldly strike at all revelations, ancient and modern, and at 
the common faith of the world. 

But is the mind most potent when the whole man is sick ? 
Are its highest objects obtained when its laws are infringed 
by the misdirected action of the will ? Must it become de- 
lirious to solve the problems which mock the calm and or- 
derly exercise of its powers ? Is it the prerogative of the 
mind to dive and not to soar ? And are only madmen com- 
missioned to unfold celestial harmonies and to bring the 
kingdom of peace on earth ? No ; it is not so. Indeed, only 
a negative answer can be given to these questions. It re- 
quires no argument to satisfy the rational mind that the high- 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. J 

est achievements of which mans nature is capable will be realized 
when he acts consistently with the laws of his being. Surely the 
mind can only exhibit its greatest power when left to its 
normal action, for then there is little or no resistance, while 
all its energies cooperate and tend to the same result. A 
strict observance of the laws of Nature, and the proper con- 
servation of all physical, mental, and moral forces, greatly 
diminish the friction in all the activities of life. The ordi- 
nary operations of mind, as illustrated in the common pur- 
suits of men, are of course most familiar to our daily observa- 
tion ; but this fact does not warrant the conclusion that they 
are altogether consistent with the laws of its constitution. 
Such a conclusion from such premises would only foster our 
self-love at the expense of the truth. Now, if we cannot 
rationally accept the familiar operations of the mind, as indi- 
cating the measure and the mode of its legitimate exercise 
and normal capabilities, away goes the stupid and degrading 
assumption that its noblest gifts are dependent on some cor- 
poreal derangement, rather than on God, his ministering 
Angels, and its own immortal faculties as naturally exercised 
in the realm of our spiritual relations. 

The powers of mind, as developed in men of accredited 
genius, or otherwise displayed by the seers and prophets of 
all ages, may be rationally referred to a kind of natural inspi- 
ration and a susceptibility of spiritual influence of which the 
mind may be, and, indeed, must be, receptive in the higher 
planes of its exercise and development. We naturally, and 
necessarily, derive our impressions from the principles, forces, 
and objects with which we sustain intimate relations. When, 



8 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

therefore, the mind is profoundly engrossed with interior 
realities, it is proportionably withdrawn from the external 
objects which appeal to the senses, and as naturally receives 
influxes from the realms of the Invisible, as at other times it 
perceives the presence and distinguishes the forms and quali- 
ties of more material creations. Not only may this idea of 
inspiration be entertained consistently with the laws and 
relations of the human mind, but we can only reject it by 
disregarding the analogies of the Universe, and a vast amount 
of evidence derived from the actual experience of mankind. 
All original ideas, and every creation of beauty and use, may 
be supposed to emanate from that ideal realm — the world of 
Spiritual Realities. If not, why are they born in moments of 
profound abstraction, when, by intense mental concentration, 
the sensorial perceptions are deadened and the soul is quick- 
ened ? Will the materialist tell us, if he can, why the spir- 
itual element enters so largely into the writings of nearly all 
men of acknowledged genius, if it is not because they are 
inspired from spheres of supra-mortal intelligence ? The 
man of genius surely does not draw his inspiration from com- 
mon earth, nor from baser minds ; and no man rises above 
himself in the absence of a power which is able to lift him up 
to some higher plane of thought and action. Why does the 
spiritual element predominate in the works of Dante, Shake- 
speare, Milton, and all true poets, if not for the obvious rea- 
son that, in seasons of the greatest mental exaltation, they 
are essentially removed from the sphere of grosser life, and 
sublimated in thought and feeling by association with the hid- 
den principles of Nature and Spirits of the immortal world ? 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. 9 

The spiritual idea is not only fundamental in the principal 
religious systems of the world, but it finds a place in the best 
literature of all ages and countries. These views entirely ac- 
cord with the actual experience and personal claims of the 
most exalted natures. Scarcely a great poet, painter, sculptor 
or musician, has ever lived who was not conscious of drawing 
his inspiration from some invisible source, while many have 
professed to be directly assisted by the agency of spirits. The 
great poets of both ancient and modern times have recognized, 
not merely the essential principles of the Spiritual Philosophy, 
but also various phenomenal illustrations of the subject. If 
the critics had power to take all the spiritual elements out of 
Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Cole- 
ridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Campbell, Bulwer, Bailey and 
others, they would rob these authors of their earthly immor- 
tality. In the effort to grasp the spiritual idea they reach their 
loftiest flights. Among the ancient poets Virgil ascends to the 
heaven of his imagination when, in the sixth book of the 
yEneid, he thus describes the spirits of the wicked in the 
ordeals of purification : 

Others are hung up, 
Suspended to the empty winds ; under a vast abyss, 
The unwrought wickedness is washed from others, or is burnt up by fire. 

When the great dramatic poet ascribes motion and speech 
to stones and trees, we must not interpret the author too lit- 
erally. He could not have believed that inanimate objects are 
ever endowed with the power of voluntary motion and the 
gift of human language. When he affirmed that 

" Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak," 



/ 

10 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

he did but recognize the invisible powers, which give shape to 
matter and motion to lifeless things. The spiritual element in 
Shakespeare's works is further manifest, not only in the won- 
derful insight which detects the subtile principles and motives 
which are the springs of human action ; but he summons the 
shades of departed human beings in " Hamlet " and " Mac- 
beth," and often depends on realms which lie beyond the 
confines of sensuous life for the characters in his wonderful 
dramatic creations. 

Milton was not indebted to the external world and the 
mediation of the senses for his grand conceptions. Many of 
the characters and much of the imagery of his great poem 
were derived from spheres which mortal eye hath not seen. 
The essential elements of his faith were something more real 
than the mere phantoms of a distempered brain. He believed 

that 

" Bright aerial spirits live insphered 

In regions mild of calm and serene air ; " 

but he did not entertain the materialistic notion now so 
prevalent, even in the church, that the blessed spirits are all 
shut up in some local heaven far away, and forever incapable 
of coming to our assistance. On the contrary, he thus ex- 
presses his faith in the perpetual intercourse between the 
Physical and Spiritual Worlds : 

" God will deign 
To visit oft the dwellings of just men, 
Delighted ; and with frequent intercourse 
Thither will send his winged messengers 
On errands of supernal grace." 

The poet, whose mortal blindness shut out all the objects of 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. II 

the material world, had his spiritual vision illuminated. The 
fact is recognized even by those who have no faith in Spirit- 
ualism. Dr. Johnson, in a critical review of Milton, thus ex- 
pressed his idea of the exalted state of the poet's mind and 
his spiritual relations in his inspired moments : 

"God and the angels seemed to approach nearer and the World of 
Spirits to open ?nore and more as the Poet retired de'per within his own' 
soul. Earth could no longer attract or distract his spirit, through sense ; 
and, chastened by meditation and faith, he saw that higher world to 
which imagination points, but which the pure, enlightened, and rapt 
spirit only can behold. And he saw there the drama of Paradise Lost 
and Regained, and his tongue was inspired to utter what the eye of his 
soul beheld. " * 

It is in the masterly drawing of the character of a Spirit 
that Milton reaches the highest point to which the genius of 
the poet may aspire. It was Satan — the impersonation of 
unqualified selfishness and the love of despotic power — who 
" would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven." In re- 
ferring to the chief of the apostate angels, who still, in spite 
of his fall, so grandly 

" Eminent stood like a tower " — 

Another inspired poet, Coleridge, says : " Around this char- 
acter he has thrown a singularity of daring, a grandeur of 
sufferance, and a ruined splendor, which constitute the very 
height of poetic sublimity.'' 

The spiritual idea, and the overshadowing presence and 

* Samuel Johnson, LL D , — one of the most distinguished literary 
men of the last century, — was not only a devout believer in the existence 
of Spirits, but also in their capacity to visit their mortal kindred. The 
subject of Boswell's amusing biography was often ridiculed by people of 
shallow minds for his belief in ghosts. 



12 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

influence of celestial visitants, gave Coleridge his inspiration; 

and in the light of his faith and philosophy, 

" The massive gates of Paradise are thrown 
Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild 
Sweet echoes of unearthly melody, 
And odors snatch'd from beds of amaranth." 

The poet attributed his " Christabel" to a vision.* He awoke 
with its recital seemingly ringing in his ear, and immediately 
wrote out so much as his memory retained. The close of the 
poem is abrupt, showing that but part of the vision was rec- 
ollected ; nor was the poet ever able to extend and complete 
it in the manner which characterizes this fragment from the 
interior temple of the Muses. " Christabel " is remarkable 
enough to have had a spiritual origin — and Coleridge firmly 
believed in intercourse with spirits. Kubla Khan, by the 
same author, was a dream. 

While the mere intellect of Shelley exhibited a strong tend- 
ency toward a material philosophy, which recognizes neither 
God nor his angelic messengers, it is no less true that in mo- 
ments of great spiritual exaltation his inspiring agents com- 
pelled the recognition of their presence. The following is a 
reference to his friend Keats : 

" He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he ; 
Mourn not for Adonais. Thou young Dawn, 
Turn all thy dew to splendor, iox from thee 
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone. " 

While his speculative philosophy was at war with the spirit- 



* " But as, in my very first conception of the tale, I had the whole pres- 
ent to my mind, with the wholeness, no less than with the loveliness of a 
vision, I trust that I shall yet be able to embody in verse the three parts 
yet to come." Author s Preface to the English Edition of 1816. 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. 1 3 

ual idea, he could not stifle the instinctive yearnings of 
his higher nature after the realities of another and a better 
life and world. 

A deceased American poet and a most intimate friend of 
the writer — Mr. Carlos D. Stuart — expressed the same idea in 
the following extract : 

" Shelley's own soul had need of a God, a heaven, angels and minister- 
ing spirits — of communion with intelligence higher than unfolds on earth, 
in the mortal state ; and if he was too proud to confess it directly, he did 
it indirectly, uttering his inmost faith through the lips and longings of his 
Prometheus, Adonais and Alastor. What he bids Asia utter to Panthea, 
in ' Prometheus Unbound,' is his own utterance, 

" ' My soul is an enchanted boat, 

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float 
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 
And thine doth like an angel sit 
Beside the helm conducting it ? ' " 

Wordsworth evidently believed that the spirit of prophecy 
is imparted to men in all ages and countries, and that the 
spiritual senses may be quickened on Earth by super-terres- 
trial influence. In the preface to the " Excursion " he thus 
invokes the presence of that spirit : 

"Descend, prophetic Spirit ! that inspirest 
The human soul of universal earth, 
Dreaming on things to come ; and dost possess 
A metropolitan temple in the hearts 
Of mighty poets ; upon me bestow 
A gift of genuine insight." 

Campbell employs the spiritual element in his poems, of 
which we have an example in the interview between the Seer 
and the warlike chief of the Camerons. The latter is on his 



14 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

way to join the standard of Charles Stuart, when he is met 
by the Seer, who predicts his overthrow. Lochiel denounces 
him as a vile wizard, and the Seer, insisting that he cannot 
hide the terrible vision, is made to say : 

"For dark and despairing, my sight I may seal, 
But man cannot cover what God would reveal ; 
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 

The Seer proceeds to give a graphic description of the 
catastrophe. The field and the conflict are before him ; and 
as the Pretender and his legions fly in vision from the bloody 
scenes of Culloden, the prophet invokes the " wild tempest " 
— as though the elements themselves were governed by spirit- 
ual powers — to rise and " cover his flight." * 

Philip James Bailey includes numerous Spirits and Angels 
in the dramatis persona of his remarkable poem, which — 
judging from the internal evidence — was probably a genuine 
inspiration from the Spirit-World. Festus thus describes the 
manner in which the celestial visitors appear : 

" Light as a leaf they step, or arrowy 
Floating of breeze upon a waveless pool ; 
Sudden and soft, too, like a waft of light, 
The beautiful immortals come to me." 



* Paul refers ' ' to the prince of the power of the air " (Eph. ii. 2) ; and 
to the "great cloud of witnesses " (Heb. xii. 1), meaning the early Pa- 
triarchs, Moses, the Prophets, and others, who, by faith, are said to have 
vanquished their enemies, etc., setting an example of fidelity to their 
convictions, and departing this life in solemn trust, " of whom the world 
was not worthy." The living are said to be "compassed about" by 
these immortal witnesses. 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. 1 5 

Festus is interrogated respecting the general subjects upon 
which the Angels are accustomed to discourse, and he thus 
proceeds to answer the fair questioner : 

" Some say most 
About the future ; others of the gone — 
The dim traditions of Eternity, 
Or Time's first golden moments. One there was, 
From whose sweet lips elapsed as from a well, 
Continuously, truths which made my soul, 
As they sank into it, fertile with rich thoughts — 
Spoke to me oft of Heaven, and our talk 
Was of Divine things alway — Angels, Heaven, 
Salvation, immortality, and God ; 
The different states of Spirits, and the kinds 
Of being in all orbs, or physical, 
Or intellectual. I never tired 
Preferring questions, but at each response 
My soul drew back, sea-like, into its depths, 
To urge another charge on him. This Spirit 
Came to me daily for a long, long time, 
Whene'er I prayed his presence. Many a world 
He knew right well, which man's eye never yet 
Hath marked, nor ever may mark while on earth ; 
Yet grew his knowledge every time he came. 



He was to me an all-explaining Spirit, 
Teaching Divine things by analogy 
With mortal and material." 

Having already filled the space allotted to this article, I 
cannot here introduce examples from our American poets. 
At another time the writer may, perhaps, consider the rela- 
tions of the human mind to the spiritual sources of inspira- 
tion as further illustrated in literature, and in the works of 
the more celebrated painters and musical composers. In all 



l6 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

eras and dispensations the natural and human have sustained 
intimate and unbroken relations to the spiritual and divine. 
It is not strange, therefore, as civilization advances, and the 
human mind develops its higher faculties, that the relations 
of living thoughts and noble deeds to the realms of super- 
terrestrial influence and spiritual causation are daily becoming 
more apparent. Similar illustrations of the general subject 
are scattered throughout the history of all the Fine Arts. 
The cardinal facts and ideas of the Spiritual Philosophy are 
now rapidly finding a place in the best of our current litera- 
ture and likewise in the minds of English scientists and Ger- 
man philosophers. Indeed, there never was a time when they 
did not occupy a place in the writings of men of genius. 

The author of " Midnight Musings " — who certainly was 
never an eminently spiritual man — is rather disposed to ac- 
cept the idea that spiritual beings 



walk the earth 



Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. " 

The man who has no conception of spiritual things himself 
reveals the groveling nature of his life. The truth comes 
naturally to every one when the mind reaches the required 
moral and spiritual elevation. 

' ' While we yet have on 
Our gross investiture of mortal weeds," 

most men naturally cling to all earthly things. Although the 
mind of Washington Irving was of the sensuous type, the 
following brief extract is a significant expression of his rever- 
ential views on the general subject of this essay : 



THE POETS AND THE SPIRITS. I J 

" Is then this space between us and the Deity filled up with innumera- 
ble orders of spiritual beings, forming the same gradations between the 
human soul and divine perfection, that we see prevailing from humanity 
down to the meanest insect ? It is a sublime and beautiful doctrine, 
inculcated by the fathers, that there are guardian Angels appointed 
to watch over cities and nations, to take care of good men, and to 
guard and guide the steps of helpless infancy. Even the doctrine of 
departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings which were 
dear to them during the body's existence, though it has been debased 
by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is awfully solemn and 
sublime." 

This testimony, from one of the most distinguished Ameri- 
can authors, should humble the pride and rebuke the igno- 
rant self-conceit of that numerous class of inferior writers, 
who arrogantly denounce the very idea as a wicked impos- 
ture, and its realization as impossible in the nature of 
things. Few authors of commanding ability and reputation, 
who have made contributions to our literature which give 
promise of imperishable vitality, have ever manifested a dis- 
position to deride the just claims of Spiritualism. If they 
have not been prepared to accept the truth with becoming 
reverence and unspeakable joy, they have, at least, been dis- 
posed to honor human nature by treating the whole subject 
with profound respect. 

S. B. Brittan. 

Belvtdere Seminary, Warren County, N. J, 



RELIGION OF FAITH AND FASHION. 

REV. DR. JOHN HALL AND THE LOGIC OF THE PULPIT. 

FROM TRUTH, JANUARY 20TH, 1880. 

Millions in one Christian Temple— Sufferers from Cold, Hunger, and Nakedness in 
its Shadow — Who will save the Neglected Ones? — The Doctor discourses on 
" Faith and Science " — A Theologian answers Huxley — Who will answer the Cry 
of the Poor? — Does the Bible lead Modern Science? — Aromatic Airs and bad 
Logic at $20,000 a Year — Relations of the Serpent to Popular Theology — Ire- 
land's War on Snakes — St. Patrick slays the last in the Lake of Killarney — A 
Doctor of Divinity against Science and History— The Office of Science is to 
Formulate the Truth. 

To the Editor of Truth : 

IN your recent editorials referring to Rev. John Hall, 
D.D., and his church, you naturally enough associate 
Religion and Fashion. In the estimation of our pious aris- 
tocracy the Doctor's views and ideas derive a fictitious 
importance for the reasons that his church edifice is on Fifth 
avenue, and that he worships God for himself and his congre- 
gation in a temple that cost $2,000,000 ! It is a fact that 
within five miles of that imposing symbol of the popular faith, 
there are 50,000 people who are neither half fed nor clothed ; 
who shiver in these January days with little or no fire, and 
nightly go, hungry and cold, to a bed of straw in some place 
comfortless and desolate as a kennel. 

Every Sabbath the prayers of the elite of the elect — the 
bejeweled saints, like Dives, so gorgeously arrayed " in pur- 
ple and fine linen " — ascend and blend with the elements of 

18 



I 



RELIGION OF FAITH AND FASHION. 1 9 

common air — the fine odor of sanctification and the delicate 
aromas of Lubin's Extracts mingling together. How high 
the prayers ascend we may or may not conjecture. And 
then the piping voices of many little children, hungry and 
half naked, who have no homes ; the feeble accents of deli- 
cate, sick, and destitute women in the next street, and the 
tremulous words of old men, stricken by many years and the 
shafts of a cruel fortune — all come up in remembrance before 
God, while they seem to be neglected and forgotten by this 
saintly aristocracy of the Church. 

What intimate and endearing relation Dr. Hall sustains to 
Jesus and the Poor, we may not know. By what divine 
authority he was called at $20,000 (?) a year to preach the 
Gospel of a poor Man " who had not where to lay his head," 
we have not yet discovered ; but he is certainly a very falli- 
ble human teacher. Some time ago he delivered a discourse 
on " Faith and Science " — it was elicted by Professor Hux- 
ley's lectures — which was at least remarkable for bold, dog- 
matic assumptions, unsupported by any citation of facts or 
a single logical reason. Dr. Hall assumed that the essential 
elements of matter were acted upon and the worlds fashioned 
by the Divine Volition, and furthermore that the creation of 
matter, per se, "is an article of faith." In his blind zeal for a 
book he transcended the letter of the Mosaic record, which 
nowhere assumes so much. The Doctor imposes a more 
onerous tax on our credulity than Moses did ; and this 
appears to be both unnecessary and unwise in the present 
state of the human mind. To demand faith in an increased 
number of improbabilities, in this age of rational inquiry and 



20 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

scientific demonstration, will surely prompt many minds to 
unload, and leave the remaining lumber of old theories and 
superstitions to those who keep the antiquarian museums of a 
Saurian theology. 

In his contest with Huxley and the philosophy of evolution, 
Dr. Hall distinctly intimated that we are liable to misread the 
fossiliferous formations, as well as the Jewish Scriptures. This 
is a shrewd suggestion. Such mistakes are quite possible ; 
and it must be acknowledged that the professed scientist is 
often quite as dogmatic as the average teacher of biblical the- 
ology. We need not look for infallibility in either, and it may 
soon become our appropriate business to put both on their 
trial by a higher standard. When that time comes we may 
fearlessly sift their respective pretensions to superior light and 
supreme authority. 

The distinguished expounder of the faith of the Presbyte- 
rian Church referred to the fact that St. Augustin, a man of 
"scientific attainments, suggested the theory that the world 
was created during periods as distinguished from days ; " and 
from such hypothetical premises he advanced per saltum to 
the following conclusion : 

" We find that the Bible has been the leader of scientific thought ; that 
imperfect science has caused misunderstanding of its statements, and that 
upon further progress of science its perfect truth has been established." 

The imperfection of the Doctor's logic will be readily per- 
ceived in the fact that his premises have a strictly personal re- 
lation to St. Augustin, while his conclusion is divorced from 
any such relation, either to the English apostle or any other 
man, and has no reference or application whatever, save to a 



RELIGION OF FAITH AND FASHION. 21 

book. If Dr. Hall eats muffins for breakfast, he may just as 
well argue from this fact that the Westminster Catechism has 
been the leader of thought in the science of agricultural chem- 
istry. It would be far more logical — reasoning from the 
fact — to infer that St. Patrick was opposed to the Church 
which makes the serpent an indispensable factor in its whole 
system of theology. Did not the good Saint make war on 
snakes ? Did he not drive them all out of Ireland, and de- 
stroy the last one in the Lake of Killarney ? And yet who 
does not know that the integrity of the entire system of popu- 
lar theology is made to depend on our saving one serpent at 
least? Without one snake the Doctor's theological super- 
structure, embracing the primitive innocence, the temptation, 
the fall, vicarious atonement, and salvation through the merits 
of some one else, would fall to the ground and leave no sign of 
life for our contemplation, save the trail of the serpent among 
the ruins of the system. 

It was not so much as a saint as a scientist, that Augustin 
offered his suggestion. It was because he saw the necessity 
of accommodating his interpretation of the Scriptures to the 
existing and prospective discoveries of science. The idea 
that the Bible has been the leader of scientific thought is an 
assumption that rests on no possible foundation. It finds no 
confirmation in the records of astronomy, geology, or other 
branches of natural science. We put in evidence against the 
Doctor the history of scientific investigation and discovery ; 
the personal experiences of many noble disciples of truth ; 
the ostracisms of the lovers of Nature by the mitred represen- 
tatives of Faith, and the present infidel tendencies of most 



22 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

of the leading scientists throughout the world. If any further 
refutation were required, we might offer the case of Hall ver- 
sus Huxley, which clearly enough illustrates the fact that 
" the defenders of the faith " are not the leaders of science. 

Dr. Hall reveals his unreasoning adherence to a narrow 
creed, at the same time he betrays a very limited knowledge 
of science in his false definition of the latter. He boldly 
declares that the proper business of " science is to confirm the 
word of God ! " The man who now teaches such a doctrine 
is far behind the age in which he lives. For this reason he 
ought to " step down and out," and leave some one baptized 
into the living spirit of the times to occupy his place. We 
undertake to say that science has no such questionable busi- 
ness on hand as is described by this expounder of modern 
theology. On the contrary, the legitimate office of science 
is to so formulate the truth, on all subjects, that it may be 
clearly expressed and systematically taught. We have quite 
too much reverence for God's word, wherever that may be 
found, to presume for a moment that it needs any confirma- 

tlon - Yours for truth, 

S. B. Brittan. 
New York, Jan. 18, 1880. 



SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF SPIRITUALISM. 

WANDERING AND CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS. 

FROM THE ROCHESTER (n. Y.) DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, FEB. 22, l88o. 

Rambler on Spiritualism — The Great Question of the Ages — Disputing the Evidence 
of the Senses — Assumed Premises and Illogical Reasoning — Illusions and Hallu- 
cinations— Sensorial Evidence the Bases of Science and Jurisprudence— Rambler 
Losing both Sense and Reason, Strikes at the Foundation — Important Facts in 
Illustration — Amazing Power of the Spirits— A Sudden Conversion— Cogent 
Appeal to the Understanding. 

To the Editor of the Democrat and Chronicle : 

SIR : I find on your editorial page, in the issue of the 
31st of January, an article — in the special department 
of the Rambler — which is mainly devoted to Modern Spirit- 
ualism. The writer is supposed to belong to the staff, though 
himself disclaiming editorial responsibility for what he writes. 
As the subject has come to occupy a large share of public at- 
tention among all civilized peoples, it is eminently proper that 
its facts and philosophy should be freely discussed, always in 
the fair and liberal spirit which should characterize all scien- 
tific and religious controversies. I have no fault to find with 
the general spirit in which Rambler is pleased to express his 
thoughts and opinions on the most important question of the 
ages, though I take the liberty to dissent from his limited 
views and illogical conclusions. I copy the following from 
his introduction, which certainly gives promise of a candid 

23 



24 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

examination and considerate treatment of whatever may be 
said, in a similar spirit, on the opposite side of a very grave 
question : 

" The Rambler is in a serious mood to-day, and desires to talk seri- 
ously and wholly upon one subject, with many friends, whom he respects 
thoroughly, and that without holding the journal for which he writes in 
any way responsible for his views. It has fallen lately to his lot to see 
something of the manifestations of so-called Spiritualism, and he con- 
fesses himself to be a skeptic in regard to their validity, although he 
hopes that he is not so obstinate as to refuse to be convinced upon evi- 
dence that is indisputable. He permits himself to note certain objec- 
tions to these manifestations, with entire respect towards those who 
credit them, and more with the idea of elucidating truth, than in a spirit 
of captious criticism." 

I respect every honest skeptic, while I honor the man who 
only yields to conviction under the force of evidence. The 
present writer has trained in that company for more than forty 
years, and looks for no promotion from the ranks that will 
interrupt his existing relations. In speaking of a case of 
slate- writing in which neither the medium nor any one else 
touched the slate, on which occasion two senses, hearing and 
sight, gave concurrent testimony to the reality of the fact, the 
party receiving the communication desired to know how 
Rambler would account for the phenomenon. We. copy the 
answer from the article under review : 

" My dear sir, I distrust the evidence of your senses, as you should 
yourself distrust. You think you saw what you say you saw. I do not 
believe you saw any such thing. Such language may seem harsh, but it 
is amply justified by the facts which confront us every day, in regard to 
the imperfection of the senses. ' Can't I trust my eyes ; can't I trust 
my ears ; can't I trust my sense of touch ? ' indignantly asked the gentle- 
man. No, sir ; that is precisely what you cannot do." 



SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF SPIRITUALISM. 25 

Here Rambler boldly takes his stand on a question that is 
fundamentally important ; and this must be settled before we 
can offer any illustrative facts or personal testimony in sup- 
port of the claims of Spiritualism. The question is, Can we 
ordinarily depend on the five senses as organic instruments of 
the human mind, and channels of reliable information re- 
specting the forms of Nature and Art ; the relations of these 
to each other and to the observer ; the natural and mechani- 
cal movements of ponderable bodies ; chemical changes and 
organic developments ; in the inspection of natural phenom- 
ena within the limits of sensorial observation ; and for the 
essential facts and more important details of every day's 
experience ? 

I have no disposition to dodge the main question ; I can 
not treat it lightly ; but I will meet it fairly. We can not 
admit that the purpose of the Creator, in bestowing the five 
senses on mankind, was to deceive his creatures. Such an 
assumption, however disguised, would not only be a blasphe- 
mous attempt to impeach the creative wisdom, but it would 
be ascribing a most diabolical character and purpose to the 
Father of our spirits. I am sure we can not reject such a 
monstrous conception with too much emphasis to meet the 
views of Rambler. If, however, whilst admitting that the 
senses and their organs were primarily bestowed on man for 
wise and beneficent purposes,- it should be maintained that 
they have become so impaired and perverted by disease and 
abuse as to be generally unreliable, I need only say that this 
position is equally untenable. Indeed, it is boldly disputed 
by the most eminent physiologists and practitioners of the 



26 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

healing art ; by the science of man and our medical juris- 
prudence ; by the principles and tribunals of the law, and by 
the common sense of mankind. 

That the organic instruments of sensation do sometimes 
become diseased is readily admitted. We know that when 
they are greatly impaired by time and use, or seriously de- 
ranged by disease or accident, they are liable to convey false 
information to the mind. But it is not true as a rule that 
men and women hear voices when no one speaks ; or that 
they see objective forms where none exist. Because the crys- 
talline lens in one man in ten thousand is opaque, can Ram- 
bler show us a cataract in every man's eye ? If one man has 
ossification of his tympanum, shall we infer that all the world 
is deaf ? No ! These cases are only the occasional excep- 
tions to the rule that holds good in all ages and countries, 
and among all races and nations. 

The instances in which the senses may be said to deceive 
us are comparatively very few, and depend on physical dis- 
ease or some derangement of the organic instruments of sen- 
sation. It is proper to observe that the cases .in which the 
imagination plays an important part in shaping and distorting 
oar sensorial impressions are more numerous. When the 
timid mind is filled with apprehension of some fearful pres- 
ence or impending evil, it unconsciously to the individual 
transforms inanimate objects into wild beasts, and spectral 
forms — born of our childish fears — start into seeming objec- 
tivity with every semblance of a terrible reality. But these 
are not cases in which we are deceived by the sense of vision. 
They are not optical illusions. The metaphysical philosopher 



SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF SPIRITUALISM. 2/ 

knows very well that these are hallucinations of the mind ; and 
if the examples were a thousand times more numerous than 
they really are, they would by no means justify this attempt 
to impeach the testimony of the physical senses, on which the 
natural man must inevitably rely for all his knowledge of the 
external world. 

The cases in which two or more of the senses give false in- 
formation, whilst reason is unimpaired and the mind other- 
wise in a normal state, are probably not one in one hundred 
thousand. It is well known that our observations of the phe- 
nomena of the physical Universe must be conducted largely 
through the instrumentality of a single sense. The revela- 
tions of the whole astral system ; the eclipses of the sun and 
moon ; the transits of the heavenly bodies ; the visits of com- 
ets, which, after an absence of centuries, come back to us 

" From the dread immensity of space," 

together with the larger part of all meteoric phenomena, are 
only revealed to the mind through the eye. In all these vast 
fields of observation we have to depend on the testimony of a 
single sense ; and yet our astronomers regard this alone as 
sufficient in attestation of the facts that come within the field 
of the telescope. 

The assumption of Rambler that we cannot depend on the 
integrity of the senses, is utterly indefensible from the scien- 
tific point of view. Indeed, all modern science rests securely 
on this basis and no other. If we presume to offer evidence 
derived from our spiritual perceptions and inward conscious- 
ness, your materialistic scientists regard the act as something 



28 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

like discourtesy. If some gifted soul, in a state of magnetic 
or spiritual entrancement, sees anything without the use of 
the eye, we are told that the alleged fact is an idle dream or 
distempered fancy. If facts are disclosed, or information 
given, a knowledge of which could not, in the nature of the 
case, have been obtained through any external channel of 
communication, we are thereupon gravely entertained with a 
disquisition on popularized frauds and professional jugglery. 
Nevertheless, science is everywhere on record as depending 
on the physical senses as means of reliable information. Its 
accredited teachers unwisely reject all other sources of evi- 
dence, and, to be consistent with themselves, must discard 
the claims of revealed religion. Facts observed through the 
organic avenues of sensation are the foundation stones of its 
temple, and the solid materials of the whole superstructure. 
To depend on any other foundation is — in the judgment of 
our scientific philosophers — to build upon the shifting sands 
of the idler's speculation. 

" The theories, that scale Empyrean heights 
Should rest on granite ledges, solid truths, 
Touched, seen, felt, comprehended by the race. 
"Who builds a pyramid on winter ice ? 
Who spans an arch from buttresses of sand? 
The obelisk that cleaves the flying clouds, 
Rises from bases massive as the world ! " 

So far as Rambler presumes to reason at all, he rests his 
argument and conclusion on a mere assumption which has no 
possible foundation in either fact, law, or reason. It will be 
perceived that his premises can never be reconciled with sci- 
entific principles and methods, nor do they find any sanction 



i 



SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF SPIRITUALISM. 20, 

in the common experience of mankind. Surely, Rambler 
can never have weighed the momentous consequences which 
must inevitably follow the adoption of such premises. Every 
novice knows that the Spiritual Phenomena are observed 
through the same organic instruments of sensorial perception 
which the scientist employs in all his investigations. The 
civil and criminal codes, and the lex non scripta of all nations, 
accept such evidence. Facts, as thus observed, determine 
the application of the law in each particular case. Every 
witness placed on the stand is an open proclamation by the 
court that the human senses, exercised through the physical 
organs, not only may be, but must be depended upon as the 
only means and instruments whereby reliable information can 
be obtained, and upon such evidence alone the tribunal must 
rest its judgment. 

Now when Rambler disputes the evidence of the senses, he 
boldly strikes at the very foundations of the temple of sci- 
ence ; of our civil and criminal jurisprudence, and of all the 
institutions of social life and civil government. If one is not 
competent to testify that a table, or other ponderable body, 
moved in his presence without any visible cause of motion, 
how can he swear that A committed an assault on B, or af- 
firm that any fact in physical science ever really occurred ? 
The acceptance of Rambler's premises — could they be dem- 
onstrated to be true — would leave the temple of science in 
ruins, the majesty of the law dethroned, and our deepest con- 
victions unsettled forever. It would render all history and 
experimental philosophy valueless ; and institutions which 
have braved the revolutionary conflicts of centuries, and sur- 



30 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

vived the downfall of empires, would be overthrown to be 
reconstructed no more. 

In finding the unsubstantial ground of his main position, 
Rambler seems to have wandered as far from the realm of 
reason as from the principles and methods of accredited sci- 
ence. Many opposers of Spiritualism are pleased to associate 
the idea of insanity with the acceptance of its demonstrated 
facts and sublime philosophy. But if one may seriously 
propose to reject the evidence of his own senses, and yet 
escape the suspicion of being insane, surely no medico-legal 
commission in lunacy should ever think of searching among 
Spiritualists for examples. 

The enlightened observer will have already discovered that 
the hypotheses of optical illusions and psychological halluci- 
nations are wholly insufficient to cover the facts, as may be 
more clearly shown by illustrative examples. The writer has 
a friend, a distinguished legislator and journalist, who, on 
one occasion, had a small but intelligent assembly at his resi- 
dence, including D. D. Home, the medium. In the course 
of the evening the conversation turned on a question involv- 
ing the nature of the subtile agents employed in moving 
ponderable bodies, and the measure of power which spirits 
may be capable of exercising over the elements and forms of 
matter. The invisibles improved the occasion to illustrate 
the subject, by completely demolishing a firmly constructed 
table. Some time after, the gentleman, at whose house this 
manifestation occurred, had occasion to mention the fact in 
an interview with some friends, when one of the company 
observed that the speaker must have been deceived by some 



SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF SPIRITUALISM. 3 1 

psychological spell or other illusion ; to which my friend 
replied : "Psychologized / A psychological spell never broke a 
table. You had better go and look in my garret ; we were care- 
ful to save the pieces. You will find them all there j but it will 
require the skill of a mechanic to put them together." 

The writer was once present at a se'ance where there were 
some thirty ladies and gentlemen — including distinguished 
members of the press and the literati of Boston — at the resi- 
dence of the late Alvin Adams, whose name, as the founder 
of the great Express Company, is a household word through- 
out the civilized world. The principal medium on that occa- 
sion was a young divinity student, in very delicate health, 
who for some time had been suffering from pulmonary hem- 
orrhage. Kneeling on a rug before a grand piano, he ran his 
fingers over the keys and played a medley, when the front of 
the instrument — rising as if deprived of all gravity — marked 
the measure of the music with the utmost precision, making 
all the changes of time in the fragmentary passages of the dif- 
ferent compositions. Subsequently, in the course of the even- 
ing, three heavy men, whose aggregate weight was over six 
hundred pounds, seated themselves on the front of the piano, 
at the right and left of the key-board, when the same remark- 
able phenomena were repeated, the instrument, with its super- 
incumbent burden, moving with the same apparent ease, free- 
dom and precision as before. I must not omit to mention in 
this connection that the parlors were brilliantly illuminated 
during the entire performance. 

In the company present there was at least one honest be- 
liever in the hallucination hypothesis. Looking on with an 



32 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

expression of great astonishment, he occasionally rubbed his 
eyes, and at length said to the writer : " It really appears to 
move ; but I don't believe it does. I must be hallucinated 
like the rest of the company." Responding to the gentleman, 
I said in a low voice, yes, it certainly does seem to move, and 
in a manner that impressively suggests the presence of some 
invisible intelligence possessing amazing power. I then added, 
in a serio-facetious manner, the suggestion that there was one 
way in which he might, perhaps, settle the question to his 
entire satisfaction. When the grand piano appeared to rise 
he had only to make the attempt to put his foot under that of 
the instrument. The man did not look like a lunatic, and 
the thought never entered the mind, that he was so crazy in 
his skepticism as to act on my suggestion. To my utter as- 
tonishment he demonstrated his verdant simplicity by making 
the experiment, thus showing how 

" Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread." 

Just then he felt — as down came the instrument, with the 
other " heavy weights " — something like the tread of an ele- 
phant on his toes. The result was, Spiritualism made another 
convert. It will be remembered that the spirits made short 
work of converting Saul of Tarsus ; they met him in the way 
and knocked him down, when he suddenly saw " a great 
light." This man fell in a similar manner, and the depth of 
his conviction was only equaled by the unusual weight of the 
evidence on his understanding ! 

Trusting to your love of justice, and your respect for a nu- 
merous class of people in every community — whom, at least in 



SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF SPIRITUALISM. 33 

some important sense, I have the honor to serve — I respect- 
fully solicit the publication of this letter. Believe me, Gen- 
tlemen — for the fair and equal representation of all classes in 
society and their views, respectively — on the great question of 
a demonstrated immortality, 

I am yours sincerely, 

S. B. Brittan. 



80 West Eleventh Street 
New York, Feb. 16, 1880 



;.} 



" The Irrepressible Conflict." — The approaching con- 
flict may not be altogether confined to the realm of thought, 
and the arena of intellectual and moral controversy. When 
special legislation is evoked, not only to arrest the progress 
of ideas, but to arbitrarily uphold the dying institutions that 
have already outlived their usefulness, we are not likely to 
be invited to a parlor entertainment. The enemy is sure to 
hit us with something harder than a battledoor, and we shall 
require to be armed with something better than a shuttle- 
cock. A soft flesh-brush, or a soup-ladle, will never answer 
the purpose. We need the sharpest and most pointed weap- 
ons, and, I am happy to say, they are within our reach. 
" The sword of the spirit " — the naked Truth — driven home 
to the brain and the heart, is keener far than a Damascus 
blade ; and it only remains for us to organize our forces and 
prepare for the impending battle. 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

REVIEW OF REV. JOSEPH COOK'S LECTURES. 

FROM THE BOSTON HERALD, FEB. 28, 1880. 

The Religion of Jesus rests on Spiritual Facts— What Spiritualism Comprehends— 
Author of the Monday Lectures not a Spiritual Man— Crude Classification of 
Spiritualists— Religion of the Future — Mr. Cook lost in the fog of Supernatural- 
ism — Man belongs to the Natural Sphere — Another call for a Scientific Investiga- 
tion—Scientists answer, but the Clergy do not hear — The Quality of Charity. 

To the Editor of the Herald : 

IN the popular lectures now in course of delivery by Rev. 
Joseph Cook of your city, Spiritualism furnishes the 
principal theme. From the reports of the first and second 
lectures, it clearly appears that the reverend gentleman is not 
inclined to view the subject with any considerable degree of 
favor. And yet such a gracious treatment would seem to be 
most becoming the ministerial representative of a Religion 
which rests all demands upon our faith and reverence on 
Spiritual Phenomena — on the facts which at once emphasized 
the claims of its Founder, and signalized the ministry of his 
earliest disciples. It is also made to appear that Mr. Cook is 
not naturally inclined to spiritual things from any special 
adaptation of his mind and general constitution to the supe- 
rior field of thought and investigation which he essays to 
explore in his present lectures. It is no fault of the lecturer 
that he does not bring to the consideration of this subject the 

34 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 35 

peculiar type of mind that readily apprehends and assimilates 
metaphysical principles and spiritual truths. This may be 
regarded as a defect in the organization of a Christian minis- 
ter, and it is quite sufficient to account for many crude con- 
ceptions, and a confused state of mind which may naturally 
suggest the chaos of Moses, which is represented to have 
been "without form and void." 

Any attempt to follow Rev. Mr. Cook in the details of his 
desultory observations would oblige the writer to far tran- 
scend the prescribed limits of this letter. For this reason 
the reviewer must adopt a brief and comprehensive method, 
by considering only such questions as are fundamental in the 
present controversy. 

Speaking of the believers in Spiritualism, Mr. Cook ob- 
serves that they are divided into the two classes of Christian 
and infidel Spiritualists ; that the last mentioned class is by 
far the more numerous ; and he continues by saying : " An 
infidel Spiritualist is evidently the most inconsistent of infi- 
dels. The modern Spiritualist is the last man who can con- 
sistently dispute the fact of the supernatural." That many 
persons, who accept the cardinal fact of actual intercourse 
with spirits, are infidel in some of the relations of life, we 
have no reason to doubt, and we shall not attempt to stay the 
hand of any man who may be pleased to chastise them in 
the spirit of Christian charity. But we object to Mr. Cook's 
most remarkable generalization, as illustrated in the indis- 
criminate application of his free gospel lash. The great body 
of the people here described as infidel, numbering some 
millions, in every rank and condition of life, are not traitors 



36 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

to their country ; they are not false to the civil and political 
institutions under which they live ; nor are they hostile to any 
great interest of humanity. It is true that the more numer- 
ous class of believers in the facts and philosophy of Spirit- 
ualism have not thought it wise to prefix the word Christian 
to the name which, in their minds, comprehends all the ele- 
ments required to formulate a profound and comprehensive 
science ; the essential principles of a far-reaching philosophy, 
whose sublime induction extends to other worlds, material 
and spiritual, and embraces all the forms of matter, life, and 
mind ; together with those moral forces and diviner agents 
which represent all that is most sacred in the great Eclectic 
Religion of the future, which is to comprehend whatever is 
pure, wise, and ennobling in the systems of all ages and 
countries. A people entertaining such views cannot be in- 
fidel, in any sense that implies their rejection of aught that is 
essentially good and true ; and to stigmatize them as such is 
to foolishly misrepresent their principles and their character 
before the world. On the question that relates to the super- 
natural, Mr. Cook seems to be lost in the same fog which has 
obscured the mental vision of nearly all who have hitherto 
participated in this controversy. To the discussion of this 
subject, especially, we may — without injustice to the theolo- 
gians — apply the following lines of the poet : 

" The tree of knowledge, blasted by disputes, 
Yields only sapless leaves, instead of fruits." 

Mr. Cook's discourses on the supernatural thus far discover 
no clearly defined ideas. He does not attempt to tell us how 
much is really embraced in the wide domain of Nature. He 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 37 

draws no lines and indicates no limit beyond which we are 
to regard all objects as supernatural creations, and all 
phenomena as produced by supernatural means and agents. 
So far from explaining any principle in the natural world, or 
indicating a recognition of any law of the Spiritual Universe 
that may be supposed to govern the occurrences which are 
presumed to transcend the sublime possibilities of Nature, he 
does not so much as offer us a single lucid definition of the 
smallest thing, either in heaven or on earth. At this rate the 
discussion might go on until the final judgment, and nothing 
would be settled. Now if we can only find some solid, cen- 
tral ground where all the contending parties in this contro- 
versy may stand, we shall be obliged to see the subject from 
the same point of observation. This is all that is required to 
terminate the discussion about the natural and supernatural, 
which has agitated the church so long. If we can agree to 
accept one and the same definition of Nature, this " holy (?) 
war" will inevitably cease, and Bro. Cook will see Spirit- 
ualism from a new standpoint, and in a clearer light. 

Here let me inquire, How much does Nature embrace ? 
That it includes everything which belongs to the mineral, 
vegetable and animal kingdoms, there can be no doubt. But 
does Man belong to nature ? All will agree that the human 
body is a part of the natural creation. When it is decom- 
posed, all its chemical constituents go back into the great 
laboratory of Nature where they belong. In like manner all 
the imponderable elements and forces, which determine the 
organic functions of the living body, go out to mingle with 
the similar elements of earth and air and water. If man — in 



38 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

respect to his objectivity and' personality — is a part of Nature, 
we must logically infer that all his faculties, affections, pas- 
sions, susceptibilities and aspirations are properly included in 
the grand economy of the natural world. But if the human 
mind, per se, is not really a part of the natural creation, then 
we must logically conclude that its functions, even in this 
life, are all supernaturally performed. We may not conjec- 
ture what a theologian might do, if rendered desperate by 
being confined to " the ragged edge " of an unanswerable 
argument, but we are sure that no man, in a normal state of 
mind, will assume this extraordinary ground. The human 
mind being a part, and the crowning glory of the natural 
creation, it follows that the exercise of its faculties, in what- 
ever state of being, and the expression of its thoughts and 
ideas, through whatever medium or channel of communica- 
tion, is altogether natural. The final conclusion is, therefore, 
inevitable : Inasmuch as the modern phenomena are but the 
diversified exhibitions of human intelligence, we can arrive at 
no other judgment but that they are strictly natural and in 
harmony with the discovered laws and relations of mind and 
matter. 

The reader will now be able to see the reason why enlight- 
ened and philosophical Spiritualists do not believe in super- 
naturalism. It is because Nature — in their view of the sub- 
ject — is an institution so vast as to embrace the whole field 
of human observation. The Church does believe it (it always 
clings to its own dogmas), for the obvious reason that its 
conception of the subject is limited by its own contracted 
and ignoble views of the extent and resources of this divine 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 39 

natural economy of the world. The rational Spiritualist may 
not deny the very facts which the Church regards as miracu- 
lous ; but his broader view of the possibilities of Nature, and 
his deeper comprehension of essential principles, enable him 
to ascribe the same to causes and agents, which are at once 
both spiritual and natural. We respectfully suggest that the 
reason why Bro. Cook believes in supernaturalism, may be 
found in the fact that his own beggarly idea of Nature only 
includes the few things he can either see, taste, smell, han- 
dle, weigh, dissect, or put in a crucible. We must assure 
him that we are no representative of infidelity in any sense 
in which an intelligent and fair-minded man is likely to use 
the word ; but must candidly admit that our conception 
of Nature is so large that we have no room for the super- 
natural within the vast realm of human research and scien- 
tific discovery. 

Mr. Cook assumes that Spiritualism is little if anything 
more than a series of hypothetical propositions, which, so far 
as they have not been already exploded, remain to be dem- 
onstrated. He insists that the facts have not yet been scien- 
tifically investigated, notwithstanding it is well known that 
since the conversion of our own Dr. Robert Hare — more than 
a quarter of a century ago — scores of scientists and philoso- 
phers, in every part of the civilized world, have not only 
recognized the facts, but have authenticated their spiritual 
claims. If it shall finally appear that the manifestations have 
a spiritual origin — even though they be found to be the work 
of devils — Mr. Cook may, possibly, with some show of reluc- 
tance, accept them, because he can turn the facts to practical 



40 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

account in his warfare against infidelity and in defence of 
his theological supernaturalism. 

Whoever would reach the high plane of true charity, must 
rise above the narrow views of noisy sectarists ; forget his 
private aims and selfish loves, in deference to his kind. 
Charity looks with lenient eye on different peoples, parties, 
and religions, and judges all in righteousness. 



S. B. Brittan. 

80 West Eleventh Street, 
New York, Feb. 30, 



et, ) 
1880. ) 



The Waster and the Builder. — We have reviewed the 
lawless army of the Iconoclasts, and the implements of de- 
struction in their hands. In their madness they hurled the 
ancient idols from their pedestals, demolished the temples, 
and extinguished the fires on the old altars. The very 
ground beneath the feet of the invaders is covered with the 
fragments of sacred images. With a fine sense of propriety 
the Iscariots went out early — probably to hang themselves, as 
they have not returned. The Waster has had his day. He 
came in the morning ; and, lo ! at the evening his work was 
done. Many were sorrowful while they gazed on the ruins. 

" Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, 
Groped for his old accustomed stone, 
Leaned on his staff, and wept, to find 
His seat o'erthrown." 

Now let the Waster go his way and give place to the Builder. 



THE SPIRITUAL CONTROVERSY. 

A MODERN SAMSON PULLING AT THE PILLARS. 

FROM THE CINCINNATI (OHIO) DAILY ENQUIRER, MARCH 22, l88o. 

Independence of the Enquirer — Judge and Mrs. A. G. W. Carter— Hon. Nelson 
Cross— The Ex-President of Columbia University— Charmed Life of Spiritual • 
ism — Cicero on Divination — A Distinction without a Difference — Philological 
and Theological Exposition— Looking into the dead Past for Wisdom — More 
Syntax than Sense — Has Divinity lost the power of Speech ? — Fox Sisters, Pro- 
fessor Morse and the Scientists — Dr. Samson's Explanation of the Rappings— 
Explosive Discharges of Nerve Force ! — Science and the Experime7ttum Crucis — 
The Doctor's Unphilosophical Classification— Demonstration versus Dogmatism 
— The Living Oracles are* never Dumb. 

To the Editor of the Enquirer : 

THE tolerant and liberal spirit of your excellent journal 
in permitting, within reasonable limits, a discussion 
of the facts, philosophy and claims of Modern Spiritualism, 
is a subject of observation far beyond the limits of your own 
State. The papers contributed by Judge A. G. W. Carter 
have attracted considerable attention, and furnished matters 
of frequent comment in the circle of his friends in this city. 
Among the more intellectual class of Spiritualists in New 
York the Judge and Mrs. Carter have many friends, includ- 
ing Hon. Nelson Cross, who will be remembered as formerly 
belonging to the Bar and Bench of your city. It having been 
suggested to me that a letter on any of the living issues or 
current topics connected with Spiritualism might meet with 
favor at your hands, I have concluded to act on the sugges- 

41 



42 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

tion, and will improve this occasion by a brief commentary 
on the recent labors of " Rev. Dr. Samson, Ex- President 
of Columbia University." This eminent divine and teacher 
very recently delivered a discourse against Spiritualism, in 
Trinity Baptist Church of this city, which was not especially 
remarkable for originality of thought, or, indeed, for any- 
thing new in the argumentum ad hominem of the opposition. 

Many theological Samsons have employed similar means 
and instruments in their futile attempts to annihilate Spirit- 
ualism. But, for some reason not clearly understood by those 
who oppose it, this thing possesses a charmed life, and oppo- 
sition only seems to stimulate its growth. That some of the 
spirits, especially in the cabinet exhibitions, are incarnated in 
"too solid flesh," I have no doubt ; and yet it is impossible 
to conceal the fact that the spirits are often so intangible that 
the famous weapon employed by the original Samson never 
hits these ethereal beings a fatal blow. And so these spirits 
enjoy an immunity that provokes the saints to anger, while it 
excites the special wonder of the rest of mankind. I copy 
the following from the report of Dr. Samson's lecture : 

" Dr. Samson said divination was as old as history, and among heathen 
people it took the place of revelation. Cicero wrote an extensive book 
on divination, and those who would take the trouble to read it would be 
surprised to learn how little there is in modern Spiritualism that is new. 
The ancient magicians knew more about such things than any one can 
understand at the present day." 

Here a distinction is made which can only produce a con- 
fusion of ideas, since it is calculated to mislead the common 
mind. If there was really any essential difference between 
the revelations of Jewish prophets and the results of divina- 



THE SPIRITUAL CONTROVERSY. 43 

tion as practiced by Pagan nations, would it not have been 
well for the venerable ex-President to have explained that dif- 
ference in a manner that could have been understood by his 
hearers ? The truth is, there was never any such difference 
as warrants the Reverend Doctor's distinction. Divination 
is thus denned by Webster : " Foretelling future events, or 
discovering things secret or obscure, by the aid of superior 
beings, or by other than human means. Among the ancient 
heathen philosophers natural divination was supposed to be 
effected by a divine afflatus." Now, what is Revelation, par 
excellence, more than is embraced in the definition already 
given ? It is essentially the same thing — the unveiling, un- 
covering, or otherwise disclosing by other than merely human 
means things before concealed or unknown. In a specific 
sense, as defined by theological expositors, a revelation is a 
" communication of that which could not be known or discov- 
ered without divine or supernatural instruction." 

In referring this question to the arbitration of philologists 
and theologians, we discover that there is really no essential 
difference between divination and revelation. Both are said 
to uncover what was hidden ; to expose to view something 
that was concealed ; to make known things which were before 
unknown ; and to employ supra-mortal intelligences in mak- 
ing such disclosures. The superficial differences of national- 
ity, forms of religion and worship, historic periods and degrees 
of civilization, in no way change the fundamental principles 
of the subject. If it is to be viewed from a scientific stand- 
point, we must fearlessly analyze the facts, and the intrinsic 
nature of the same must determine their proper classification, 



44 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

regardless of all extrinsic circumstances and the superficial 
aspects derived from the time and place of their occurrence. 
The methods in what are called divination and revelation are 
similar, if not identical. Both contemplate the use of " other 
than human means " — the agency of invisible powers or supc 
rior beings ; and, as the ultimate source of their inspiration, 
the inbreathing of the Divine Spirit. If the Jew and Chris- 
tian, in their search for ultimate causes — in the last analysis — 
refer the most refined and exalted super-sensuous influences 
to God, so did the heathen philosophers ascribe their highest 
inspiration to " a Divine afflatus." Every scholar knows all 
this, not even excepting those who make a virtue of using 
words to conceal the truth. 

The declaration that " the ancient magicians knew more 
about such things than any one can understand at the present 
day," involves the incredible announcement that the race has 
degenerated and lost in a measure the capacity which distin- 
guished the earlier nations. We can not accept the assump- 
tion of this mental retroversion which looks with averted eyes 
into the dead past for the greatest light and the highest "wis- 
dom. Only such souls as yet linger in the retreating shadows 
of the old night, whose " holy of holies " is an antiquarian 
museum — the worshipers of mere forms and lifeless relics in- 
stead of vital principles and living ideas — find that, to such 
a degree, 

" Distance lends enchantment to the view," 

that they are only too happy to discount the intelligence of 
their own times. That the ancient Magi did know much 



THE SPIRITUAL CONTROVERSY. 45 

more about divination and revelation than our people are 
likely to learn from the modern pulpit, there can be no doubt 
in the minds of intelligent readers. But Dr. Samson is not 
authorized to estimate the acquired knowledge and to measure 
the innate capacity of all his contemporaries by the limits of 
his own individual standard. I do not lose sight of the fact 
that the learned Doctor has been at the head of the Univer- 
sity ; but I am also reminded that there have been many emi- 
nent schoolmasters who never had an idea beyond what was 
printed in the accepted class-books. If Cowper's description 
is severe, we can scarcely question the justice of its applica- 
tion to such teachers of learned ignorance : 

" For such is all the mental food purveyed 
By public hackneys in the schooling trade ; 
Who feed a pupil's intellect with store 
Of syntax, truly, but with little more." 

Men whose minds are of common mold generally tumble 
into a rut in youth or during their college days. If it is a 
theological groove, they seldom get out of it ; but, as a rule, 
continue to run round and round in their own small circle to 
the end of time. When such men venture to pass judgment 
on subjects outside of the limits of their little periphery, they 
are sure to expose their ignorance. This is a matter of very 
common observation whenever they meddle with metaphys- 
ical and spiritual questions. Men of this class generally be- 
lieve in a God who has lost the power of speech, or for other 
reasons has determined to say nothing more to mankind in 
this world — the sacred canon having been filled up and closed 
eighteen hundred years ago — otherwise they might hear from 



46 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

him as " the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind," saying, 
" Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowl- 
edge ? " Is it to be supposed that God and his angels (mes- 
sengers), after having freely spoken to the Jews for centuries, 
have declared non-intercourse forever with the rest of man- 
kind ? This is the dogmatic assumption of the Evangelical 
Churches ; and for this reason, especially, they declare all 
the alleged spiritual revelations of modern times, and all com- 
munications made to the heathen world in all ages, as vile 
impostures, or, at best, the result of an unlawful intercourse 
with the invisible world. 

Strange to say, the Rev. Dr. Samson really exalts the Fox 
Sisters to a very high place in scientific annals. Those ladies 
will be surprised to learn, for the first time, that they are per- 
mitted to take rank with such men as Professor Morse and 
his associates. This appears from the following extract from 
the report of the Doctor's lecture : 

"All phenomena came from natural causes and were governed by 
natural law. While Morse was making electricity carry living words over 
dead substances, the Fox Sisters, by the nervous forces of their bodies, 
were rapping answers to questions which their visitors already knew. In 
neither case was there anything supernaturally performed." 

Of course there was nothing supernatural to the mind that 
has an extended view and a rational judgment of the vast ex- 
tent and immeasurable resources of Nature. But it is to be 
observed that while Professor Morse, as the practical expo- 
nent of science, was sending his messages over the wires, the 
three Sisters and many others were doing what no physical 
scientist or material philosopher has yet been able to do, 
namely, they were rapping out communications — often on the 



THE SPIRITUAL CONTROVERSY. 47 

walls and ceilings far above their own heads — without either 
battery or any of the instrumentalities of the telegraphic art. 
With no knowledge of the laws which govern the subtle 
agents ; without scholastic training of any kind, they puzzled 
all the scientists by producing — without electrical, mechani- 
cal or other instruments — results more remarkable than they 
were able to accomplish with all their professional aids and 
scientific accessories, of zinc and copper-plates, acids in many 
cups, long poles with glass insulators, galvanized wires and 
other telegraphic instruments. 

Now the Fox Sisters knew no more about the dynamics 
of vital and spiritual forces than they did of the Sanskrit lan- 
guage. Yet, according to this learned Doctor of the Modern 
School of Divinity, they were able to produce explosive dis- 
charges of nerve force in regular succession, and in such a 
manner as to embody and express the thoughts of some for- 
eign intelligence to the Doctor unknown. If the rappings and 
moving of ponderable bodies are all produced by a disruptive 
discharge of vital electricity, or " the nervous forces " of the 
human body, why may not Dr. Samson and the School of 
Modern Scientists give us at once the demonstration of their 
theory ? Have Doctors of Divinity no " nervous forces " at 
their command, or do the scientists lack the ability to use the 
small artillery of their masked batteries ? And why do the 
electricians neglect to employ their discharging instruments, 
when they might touch themselves off, and thus explode the 
magazines of " nervous forces " in the rest of mankind ? 
What weak women and little children are doing daily, these 
scientists ought to perform without difficulty. Gentlemen, if 



48 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

all the elements, agents and forces required in the production 
of these phenomena reside in the human body, and are at the 
disposal of every frail medium, surely those who adopt this 
view have no rational excuse for neglecting the demonstration 
of their hypothesis for a single hour. Such an experimentum 
cruets might be of no little consequence in some of our fossil- 
ized institutions, where the revelation of even a galvanic 
semblance of the true spiritual life of man would afford some 
relief, especially to those who have been waiting long and 
anxiously for something to revive their dying hopes. 

I will extract another brief passage from the Herald's re- 
port, and this will sufficiently indicate the only remaining 
point in Dr. Samson's discourse which is worthy of comment 
in this connection : 

" In closing, the speaker said there are three classes of manifestations 
belonging to modern Spiritualism. First, table rapping ; second, me- 
dium writing ; third, mind reading. It was established beyond all doubt 
that a ' subject ' never told what the medium did not know, or vice versa. 
Nothing came to a man's mind that he did not know before. He merely 
reported what was before known." 

It needs no long acquaintance with spiritual phenomena, or 
any attainments beyond the most superficial knowledge of the 
subject, to enable one to make the discovery that Rev. Dr. 
Samson's classification of the phenomena is not only wholly 
incomplete, but that it is destitute of the slightest aspect of a 
scientific method of mind, philosophical discrimination, or 
even a capacity for something like precision of statement. 
The bold assumption that the Spirits never communicate any 
fact, occurrence or information not previously known to either 
the medium or the investigator flatly contradicts the actual 



THE SPIRITUAL CONTROVERSY. 49 

experience of thousands. The people are neither so ignorant 
as their teachers imagine, nor so blind to the new evidences 
of their immortality. They are no longer governed by the 
priesthood. The press is now the chief instrumentality in 
fashioning popular thought, and few to-day, in Protestant 
Christendom, are disposed to accept any dogma that contra- 
dicts their personal experience. 

The new age means freedom of thought on all the great 
questions which involve the present and future interests of 
mankind. The world is quick with spiritual life, and divine 
ministers touch the sensitive souls of the living. The poet 
had the ancients in view when he said, 

" The oracles are dumb, 
No voice or hideous hum 
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving." 

This may be true of the oracles of Greece and Rome, but 
living souls never die, nor have they lost the power of speech. 
Paralysis is not epidemic in heaven. The deathless oracles 
that come to quicken our faith and inspire new and diviner 
hopes in this material age, do not speak here and there from 
some temple dedicated to the gods, but in a million house- 
holds all over the civilized world ! The assertion that they 
never tell us any thing we did not know before, is not true. 
In charity, however, we must presume that Dr. Samson hon- 
estly entertains the opinion he expressed. And yet the present 
writer could easily fill twenty-five columns with demonstrative 
proofs to the contrary, all so clearly authenticated as to satisfy 
any candid and rational inquirer. This constant effort on 
the part of many saints and savants to conceal the real facts, 



50 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

to dispute the magnitude of the movement, and to belittle the 
whole subject, does not appear to check the progress of Spirit- 
ualism. The truth is, it only shakes the confidence of the 
people in the assumed infallibility of their blind guides. 



S. B. Brittan. 



80 West Eleventh Street 
New York, March 



;et, ) 

1880. j 



Historic Paper. — In 1853 — some twenty-nine years ago 
— the writer prepared a Memorial addressed to the United 
States Senate, asking for the appointment of a Scientific Com- 
missioner to investigate the Spiritual Manifestations. This 
document was signed by 13,000 American citizens. With the 
names attached, it was two hundred feet long. For con- 
venience in handling, it was backed with muslin, handsomely 
bound, and mounted on a cylinder. In April, 1854, the Me- 
morial was presented to the Senate by Hon. James Shields, of 
Illinois, in a characteristic speech of considerable length, and 
in which the General said : 

" I have now given a faithful synopsis of this petition, which, however 
unprecedented in itself, has been prepared with singular ability, present- 
ing the subject with great delicacy and moderation." 

After some discussion respecting its reference to a special 
committee, the Memorial was, on motion of Senator Mason, 
ordered to lie on the table ; and it now remains in the archives 
at Washington. 






RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 

PROF. HENRY KIDDLE AND HIS CRITICS. 

FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE.* 

Following the Example of Judge Edmonds— Free Thought and Moral Courage- 
Resignation of the Superintendent of Schools Suggested— A Blow at Religious 
Liberty — Hypocrisy Strains at the Gnat — Gross Injustice of the Opposition — Mr. 
Kiddle Defends his Book— Experience Matures the Judgment— Views of the 
Ancient Philosophers — Important Ground of Argument— Necessary Imperfec- 
tions of Mediumship— Intelligence Limited to the Measure of its Instruments— 
The Law of Universal Expression— Cavilers Wrangle while Philosophers Reason. 

To the Editor of the Tribune : 

SIR : Since the announcement of the conversion of the 
late Hon. John W. Edmonds to Spiritualism in 1852 
startled the religious community, and so alarmed the Judici- 
ary Convention that his just claims to the Supreme Court 
Judgeship were sacrificed to the popular prejudice, no new 
convert has so deeply stirred the public mind as Mr. Henry 
Kiddle, Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruc- 
tion in this city. Following the example of Judge Edmonds, 
Mr. Kiddle has published a book, in which he has fearlessly 
related his personal experience and the results of his investi- 
gation, without any attempt to make the facts acceptable to 
those who prefer their own preconceived opinions to the un- 



* This letter was published just before the work of the Editor-at-Large 
was formally inaugurated ; but it may very properly have a place in this 
connection, since — in every essential sense — it belongs to the Secular Press 
Bureau Correspondence. 

Si 



52 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

popular truth. Mr. Kiddle enters into no league with the 
enemies of Spiritualism. His manly independence is emi- 
nently worthy of imitation ; and this, at least, should command 
universal respect. 

The question of the necessity or propriety of Mr. Kiddle's 
resignation or removal has been raised, and that question has 
been sustained in certain quarters, when it should have been 
denounced as an outrage against the most sacred rights and 
privileges of the individual. Why should Mr. Kiddle be re- 
quired to resign the office he has filled with so much ability ? 
What has he ever done, or left undone, that he should be re- 
moved from a position in which all agree that he has served 
the public with the utmost fidelity ? It is impossible to dis- 
guise the animus which prompts all similar suggestions. It 
being settled, on evidence that will not be disputed, that he 
is still perfectly able rightly to discharge his duties, how is the 
Superintendent disqualified ? In the names of Reason, Lib- 
erty and Justice, I respectfully demand a statement of the 
reasons why this gross injustice is practiced toward Spiritual- 
ists ? How long shall this unmeasured insolence be tolerated 
by a great people, that probably to-day outnumbers any re- 
ligious community in the country ? It is to be observed that 
a man may believe almost anything else, however absurd and 
monstrous, and yet saintly hypocrites and journalistic time- 
servers will never intimate that his views unfit him for situa- 
tions of public responsibility. He may make Milton's majes- 
tic devil a corner stone of his religious faith ; he may embrace 
legions of little devils whose function it is to torture the souls 
of men, women, and little children forever; he may even 



RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 53 

worship a God who, from the foundation of the world, pre- 
ordained the eternal damnation of the larger part of his own 
offspring ! 

All this, and other nameless abominations, one is at liberty 
to believe, and not a Scribe or Pharisee who profits by " the 
mammon of unrighteousness," or otherwise sells his soul to 
Satan, will ever suspect that his mind is enfeebled, or that his 
religious opinions can disqualify him for any official position, 
either in Church or State ! Nor is this all ; he is quite likely 
to be regarded as preeminently qualified to superintend the 
education of our children ! O, ye hypocrites ! ye strain at a 
gnat and swallow a nest of scorpions ! 

Mr. Kiddle endeavors to justify the claims of his book from 
internal and other evidence. In the enthusiasm of his first 
love he does not question the reputed authorship of the com- 
munications he has received. The method by which he essays 
to excuse the logical, rhetorical and other defects, shows at 
once remarkable sincerity of purpose, little knowledge of the 
laws governing spiritual phenomena, and a want of that ma- 
ture judgment which is developed by long experience and a 
profound study of the facts and principles of psychological 
science. The present writer is not prepared to entertain the 
idea that the next life is a state of vacuity and retrogression ; 
or that the other world is a mere asylum for dreamers, drivel- 
ers and dotards. Nor do the facts of Spiritualism, or Mr. 
Kiddle's experience, afford any warrant for such a conclusion. 

" The great intelligences fair, 

That range above our mortal state — 
In circle round the blessed gate," 



54 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

have neither lost their power of thought nor expression. The 
greatest philosophers of antiquity viewed death as an honor- 
able promotion. The apotheosis elevated the mortal to the 
sphere and society of the gods. While this is not presumed 
to be the absolute fact, the idea is true in some qualified 
sense. All the faculties and affections are refined and exalted 
by contact with more subtle principles, nobler natures, and 
the inspiring atmosphere of the immortal life and world. 

I have not yet had an opportunity to look into Mr. Kiddle's 
book beyond the perusal of the extracts which have appeared 
in the city papers, and for this reason am not prepared to ex- 
press a confident judgment of its merits. One need not be 
greatly surprised, however, to find that he has over-estimated 
the intrinsic value of its contents. As a rule the new convert, 
however intelligent, has more heat than light. Fervent feeling 
is liable to render him less critical in the observation of facts 
and the analysis of evidence ; at the same time intense desire, 
like every passion of the mind, is liable to obscure reason and 
warp the judgment. 

Mr. Kiddle touches one of the grounds of argument which 
he has not sufficiently turned to his own account in dealing 
with his critics. I refer to the obvious limitations iniposed by 
the laws of mediu77iship. So long as the individualized intel- 
ligence — either in this world or any other — must find expres- 
sion through mediums of whatsoever nature or kind, the results 
will not and cannot depend alone on the intelligence of the 
speaker or actor ; but always — in a greater or less degree — on 
the innate capacity and proper adaptation of the instruments 
employed. A gallon measure will under no circumstances 



RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 55 

hold over four quarts. Filling it from the ocean instead of a 
bucket does not increase its capacity in the smallest degree. 
Minds are receptacles of human knowledge and inspired ideas ; 
but they all have their limits, and no human power or divine 
agency, ever experimentally illustrated in our presence, can 
cram the mind beyond the utmost limit of its capacity. What 
if God be the infinite source of our inspiration ; humanity 
is still subject to its own limitations. You may as well at- 
tempt to pour the whole Hudson River through a ten-inch 
stovepipe as undertake to force the profound ideas of Soc- 
rates, Plato, Shakespeare, Webster, and other great minds, to 
an adequate expression through the feeble brain of a weak 
woman or a little child. It is immaterial who blows, and no 
matter how hard, you can never wake a bugle-blast with a 
penny trumpet. The enemies of Spiritualism are not dis- 
posed to recognize this necessary dependence of the opera- 
tor on his instruments, and yet the truth is self-evident. All 
men, even in this world, are obliged to depend on appropriate 
instruments for the adequate expression of what they feel, and 
think, and know. The mere disputant doubts and wrangles ; 
but it is the province of the philosopher to reason. 

S. B. Brittan. 
80 West Eleventh Street, New York. 



OPPOSITION IN THE PROVINCES. 

" Strike, but hear ! " * 

FROM THE TORONTO (CANADA) MAIL, MARCH 29, 1880. 

Freedom of Speech and an Honest Judgment— Sergeant Cox— Mr. William Crookes, 
F.R.S.— Alfred R. Wallace, F.R.S.— Testimony of Eminent Authors and Distin- 
guished Scientists — William Howitt — Professor Varley— W. Stainton Moses, 
M.A., of the University College, London— George Sexton, LL.D — The German 
Professors— Fechner, Fichte, ZOllner, and Ulrici— Men who are Treated as Luna- 
tics — The Jugglers and Counterfeiters— Misrepresentations of the Press— Spirit 
of an English Poet— The Horoscope of his Country— The Prophetic Problem— 
The Question of the Ages— Sou they' s Death on Earth and Birth in Spirit-Life 
— Highly Poetic Description— Conclusion. 

To the Editor of the Mail : 

SIR : I am in receipt of a marked copy of your paper of 
the 13th ultimo, in which my attention is called to 
your editorial on " Modern Spiritualism." Your liberal motto 
from the eloquent Burke, encourages the presumption that 
you may be willing that all classes of people and every phase 



* The publication of this letter in the Toronto Mail was accompanied 
by a very lengthy editorial in a modified and thoroughly respectful tone. 
In this case we had incidental evidence of the utility of the Secular Press 
Bureau. The first intimation the writer received that his article had 
appeared, was a letter from an intelligent gentleman in Canada, who 
stated in substance that he had read our correspondence in the Govern- 
ment Organ ; that until then he had supposed Modern Spiritualism to be 
unworthy of serious consideration ; but that the perusal of this single 
letter had changed his mind. This correspondent further solicited advice 
as to the particular books he should read to obtain a general knowledge 
of the subject, and subsequently sent us his order for the same. 

56 



OPPOSITION IN THE PROVINCES. 57 

of public thought and opinion should be fairly represented 
in your columns. That you can have any possible interest in 
suppressing the views now so widely entertained among all 
civilized nations, I am not authorized to infer ; nor am I 
prepared to believe — in the absence of decisive evidence — 
that you are disposed to arraign many of the ablest men in 
England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, and the 
United States, on a charge of being deficient in either ordi- 
nary discrimination, intelligence, or integrity, without admit- 
ting them to a hearing. I therefore respectfully invite your 
attention to the contents of this letter, and trust you will be 
kind enough to submit to the readers of The Mail the obser- 
vations elicited by your strictures on the subject. 

You are pleased to .characterize Modern Spiritualism as 
" the most pretentious fraud of the time," and express sur- 
prise that " Sergeant Cox — a man with legal training and oc- 
cupying a judicial position — could have been led astray." 
You find another " similar conundrum " in the case of Pro- 
fessor William Crookes, F.R.S., the veteran editor of the Lon- 
don Journal of Science. When you speak of Spiritualism as 
" a fraud," you implicate many honest people. Distinguished 
lords and ladies, many members of the English aristocracy, 
eminent authors and scientists of world-wide reputation, all 
fall under this sweeping judgment. Where is the evidence, 
allow me to ask, that Edward William Cox, Professors Crookes, 
Wallace and Varley, the late William Howitt, W. Stainton 
Moses, M.A., of the University College, London, George Sex- 
ton, LL.D., also of England, and a host of the literati among 
English speaking peoples, have all been engaged in a stu- 



58 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

pendous and heartless fraud ? I know of no such evidence ; 
and I desire to make my record of views which seem to me 
to be, not only more honorable to those gentlemen, but to 
human nature. Again, what proof is there that such hon- 
ored names as Fechner, Fichte, Zollner and Ulrici, of Ger- 
many, have come down from their high places in the temple 
of Science to practice as common jugglers for the amusement 
of idlers, and to torture the sorrowing hearts of bereaved 
humanity ? Does any reasonable man believe that they are 
capable of this shameless mockery of our purest loves ; this 
infamous desecration of the most sacred memories of the 
departed ; this wicked crucifixion of our immortal hopes ? 
No ; never ! This assumption is far more incredible than 
any facts which Spiritualism offers for our contemplation. 
Assume anything within the wide realm of probabilities, and 
we will try to entertain the hypothesis ; but this aimless 
sacrifice of noble reputations, personal honor, the supremacy 
of reason, and this unprovoked trampling on bleeding hearts 
— this is too much ; it is manifestly impossible ! 

You admit that the persons you have been pleased to name 
are intellectual men ; that they are " shrewd and acute in 
power of observation," and that " no exposure seems to shake 
their faith " in the essential facts and fundamental principles 
of Spiritualism. And is there nothing in all this to suggest 
the probability that you may be mistaken in your judgment ? 
Few daily journalists find time to make so careful an examin- 
ation of the subject as Sergeant Cox, Professors Crookes, 
Wallace, Varley and many other scientists and philosophers 
have done. If you have not been able to command similar 



OPPOSITION IN THE PROVINCES. 59 

opportunities, may I respectfully inquire if you are prepared to 
pronounce an adverse judgment, regardless of the significant 
facts they have observed, and the conclusions to which they 
have arrived by a long and patient course of investigation ? 

The fact that cunning jugglers are able to so imitate the 
spiritual phenomena, that only sharp experts may detect the 
difference, does nothing to unsettle the faith of the rational 
believer in their actual occurrence. The counterfeit does 
not disprove the reality of the thing imitated ; but, on the 
contrary, it furnishes prima facie evidence of its existence. 
Nor does the inability to detect a forgery ever warrant the 
conclusion that those who thus fail as detectives are either to 
be regarded as accomplices of the criminal, or as wanting in a 
fair share of ordinary intelligence. 

Permit me to add, in this connection, that you make a 
great mistake when you represent the manifestations by the 
Spirits as being of no possible value, and "their communi- 
cations as trivial and useless." This indicates — pardon my 
frankness — that your observations have been chiefly confined 
to fraudulent imitations, and that the more important of the 
real facts and communications have not yet come within the 
sphere of your limited observation. The secular papers often 
select specimens of doggerel, which they publish to illustrate 
the intellectual degeneracy of the communicating spirits, and 
seemingly with a view to prejudice their readers against the 
whole subject. This course of misrepresentation fosters an 
unhealthy public sentiment ; and I can in no way more 
effectually dispose of the assumption that the communica- 
tions are either all meaningless or otherwise worthless, than 



60 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

by offering some illustrative examples. The following are 
fragments from prophetic utterances — given in 1856 — by the 
spirit of an English poet, who thus ostensibly shows us the 
horoscope of his country : 



" The huge fierce serpent Bankruptcy devours 
The nation's wealth ; when commerce flies the Thames 
And the great steamers crowd the docks no more ; 
And Parliament breaks up, while anarchy 
Bursts like a conflagration from the deep 
Fire damps of squalid want ; when harvests fail, 
And three cold summers rot the standing corn ; 
When Manchester and Birmingham consume 
First wealth, then credit, and then close their doors, 
While like an inundation pour the streams 
Of hungry operatives through the streets; 
Let those fly to the mountains — where on high 
Throned Independence waves her flag of stars — 
Who prize home quiet, peace and blessed love ; 
For, surely as the living God endures, 
The day of England's ruin draweth nigh ; 
These signs her desolation go before. 

Alas, Napoleon thought himself most wise, 

When, taking to his arms an Austrian wife, 

He plunged his armies in the Russian snows. 

The Angel of the North, who sits above 

The hyperborean realm, with wintry smile, 

Gazed on that host : they slept, they woke no more. 

'Tis thus with England — she has dug her grave ; 

The blood of all her martyrs unavenged, 

All patriots murdered by the Second Charles, 

All freemen slaughtered in America, 

And slain like sheep through trampled Hindostan, 

All wrongs against all people she has wronged, 

Like the returning tide, arise and dash 

Against her shivering, creaking, rotten State ; — 

America shall be her sole defense. 






OPPOSITION IN THE PROVINCES. 6l 

O England, I have loved thee, as a babe 
The breast it sucks, and love thee still ; thou art 
A double Empire— huge and terrible, 
Yet sweet as Indian airs from citron groves, 
Blown o'er by amorous winds — a double State. 
Millions of rotting hearts, corrupt and foul 
With every sin that brutalizes man ; 
Millions of sterling hearts, good loyal souls, 
True to the right, though ignorant, are thine. 
***** * * 

O England, rise, 
And purge from off thy soul the clotted stains ; 
Thy sins against Humanity abjure, 
While yet delivering mercy pleads for thee. 

He who sows nettles reaps a crop of stings. 
Hatch serpents and they bite. Trust fools with fire 
And palaces are tinder. Every wrong 
Brings its own vengeance. Every right makes right. 
Had Bonaparte not plunged in Russian snows 
He would not have gone down at Waterloo. 
Crises occur in every nation's fate — 
Two pathways open to as different ends 
As death from life, and gladness from despair, 
Or fame from infamy. Now England stands 
At the dividing of the roads. Her last 
Redeeming opportunity has come. 
God will arouse her starved and beaten serfs, 
And through them revolutionize the State, 
And a new Freedom build above the tomb 
Of her existing order, huge and old, 
Which has a name to live, yet lives no more." 
******* 

The foregoing extracts are passages of only average merit 
from the composite utterance of several deceased English 
bards, in a work extending to ten thousand lines. In all some 
thirty thousand lines have been given through the same me- 
dium, and with a rapidity only limited by the capacity of the 



62 



THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 



reporter to follow the inspired speaker. It is not my purpose 
to subject the lines quoted to trial by the accepted rules of 
poetic art ; I do not propose to analyze the prophetic elements 
which here find such emphatic expression ; nor shall I inquire 
whether it is probable that the prophecies of the Spirits will 
ever be verified by the national experience, and thus become 
a part of the history of a great people. We can wait for the 
stern logic of events to furnish the solution of the prophetic 
problem. But it will never do to characterize this as mere 
twaddle or senseless verbiage. The words of the immortal- 
ized poet are not meaningless. On the contrary, the spirit ex- 
presses his view of coming events with such clearness and 
force that it is quite impossible to misapprehend or disguise 
his meaning. 

The great question of all ages has been, " If a man die, shall 
he live again ? " Surely spiritual communications are never 
" trivial and useless," if in the light of the same this great 
problem finds a solution in evidence which amounts to demon- 
stration. As a further illustration of the injustice of those 
secular papers which assume to discover nothing but " stale 
platitudes " and " spiritual drivel," I will offer Robert South- 
ey's description of his departure from the sphere of mortal life 
and his entrance into the Spirit- World. It will be remem- 
bered that the light of the poet's genius was obscured some 
time before his death. The gloom in which his mind wan- 
dered in his last years ; the confused sensations, broken and 
uncertain consciousness, while the spirit's mortal instrument 
was unstrung, are all expressed with great delicacy and poetic 
effect in the following poem : 



OPPOSITION IN THE PROVINCES. 63 

THE SPIRIT-BORN. 

" Night overtook me ere my race was run, 

And Mind, which is the chariot of the Soul, 
Whose wheels revolve in radiance like the sun, 

And utter glorious music, as they roll 
To the eternal goal, 
With sudden shock stood still. I heard the boom 

Of thunders ; many cataracts seemed to pour 
From the invisible mountains ; through the gloom 

Flowed the great waters ; then I knew no more 
But this, that Thought was o'er. 

I 

" As one who, drowning, feels his anguish cease, 

And clasps his doom, a pale but gentle bride, 
And gives his soul to slumber and sweet peace, 

Yet thrills when living shapes the waves divide, 
And nioveth with the tide. 
So sinking deep beneath the unknown sea 

Of intellectual sleep, I rested there ; 
I knew I was not dead, though soon to be, 

But still alive to love, to loving care, 
To sunshine and to prayer. 

" And Life, and Death, and Immortality, 

Each of my being held a separate part ; 
Life there as sap within an o'erblown tree ; 

Death there as frost, with intermitting smart ; 
But in the secret heart 
The sense of immortality, the breath 

Of being indestructible, the trust 
In Christ, of final triumph over death, 

And spiritual blossoming from dust, 
And Heaven with all the just. 

" The Soul, like some sweet flower-bud yet unblown, 

Lay tranced in beauty in its silent cell ; 
The Spirit slept, but dreamed of worlds unknown, 

As dreams the chrysalis within its shell, 
Ere Summer breathes her spell. 



64 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

But slumber grew more deep till morning broke, 

The Sabbath morning of the holy skies, 
An Angel touched my eyelids and I woke, 

A voice of tenderest love said, ' Spirit, rise ' — 
I lifted up mine eyes, 

"Andlo! I was in Paradise. The beams 

Of morning shone o'er landscapes green and gold, 
O'er trees with star-like clusters, o'er the streams 

Of crystal, and o'er many a tented fold. 
A Patriarch — as of old 
Melchisedec might have approached a guest — 

Drew near me, as in reverent awe I bent, 
And bade me welcome to the Land of Rest, 

And led me upward, wondering but content, 
Into his milk-white tent." 

The writer of this letter has no merely personal object to 
achieve or private interest to serve. Surely, the simple truth, 
in respect to so grave a subject, is important to all who would 
comprehend the higher faculties and relations of the human 
mind, and the sublime possibilities of the future life. Trust- 
ing that you will cordially submit what I have written to the 
judgment of your readers, I am, Sir, 

Yours truly, 

S. B. Brittan. 

80 West Eleventh Street, ) 

New York, March 23, 1880, j 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. 

REVIEW OF PROF. WUNDT's LETTER. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT. 

Progress of Spiritualism in Germany — A mour firopre of American Scientists— Prof . 
Wundt's Apprehensions — What Constitutes a Scientific Authority — Disqualified 
by his own Standard — Youmans on Scientific Ignorance — Where are the Magnets ? 
— The Sleeve-gammon Hypothesis — Comparison of the Facts with the Law — 
Wundt Waging War on his Principles — Limits of the Leipzig Professor — Compre- 
hensive Views of Nature — Supernaturalism a Solecism — Natural Laws never 
Suspended — Illustrations from Nature — Diversity of Forms and Phenomena — 
Foundations of Natural Science— The Everlasting Drift — Perpetual Change of 
Conditions — Law of the Rock, the Tree and the Fish — The Wild-goose Higher 
Law — Voluntary Powers of Man— Power of Mind over Matter — Attitude of Spirit- 
ualism Misrepresented— Arrogance of Modern Scientists Rebuked— The Fields of 
Observation — The Psychology of the Future. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

YOUR readers have already been informed that those 
eminent Professors, Fichte and Ulrici, of Germany, 
having investigated the phenomena of Spiritualism in the 
presence and through the mediumship of Mr. Henry Slade 
and others, at length cordially accepted the theory which as- 
cribes the genuine facts to the presence and agency of de- 
parted human beings. The announcement of the conversion 
of these venerable scientific philosophers has occasioned no 
little interest and discussion in the educated circles of Europe 
and America. Among the German philosophical leaders of 
the opposition is Prof. W. Wundt, chief lecturer on Natural 
Philosophy in the University of Leipzig. I am reminded 

65 



66 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

that his recent letter to Ulrici, the philosopher of Halle, has 
already received appropriate treatment at your hands, but it 
may not be out of place for me to make some further ob- 
servations on the views expressed by the German Professor. 

In the treatment of Spiritualism our American scientists, 
as a rule, have betrayed a certain amour propre which is far 
more conspicuous than their love of truth and fair dealing. 
Among the scientific and literary classes of England, and be- 
fore the professors in European Universities, the subject has 
occasionally been treated in a more rational and scientific 
spirit. Of the large class who are still unable to discover 
anything in Spiritualism but jugglery and delusion, perhaps 
Prof. Wundt may be regarded as one of the most considerate 
and respectful representatives. He admits that the phe- 
nomena are objective in the ordinary sense of the word ; and 
he agrees with Prof. Ulrici, that if we presuppose the reality 
of the facts, "the consequences which follow them for our 
general view of the world," are of paramount importance. 
He entertains the notion that the lifting of tables and other 
ponderable bodies, in the manner described, would indicate 
an infringement of the laws of physical nature ; and that 
such alleged facts, if we admit their reality, suggest at least 
the unpleasant possibility of some "deeper disturbance of 
general natural laws." The mind of the learned professor 
seems to be haunted by a startling apprehension of " the philo- 
sophical consequences to which the reality of the Spiritualistic 
phenomena would force us." All such apprehensions are 
mere phantoms of the imagination, born of either childish 
ignorance or popular skepticism ; and we may reasonably 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. 6j 

conclude that they are never likely to disturb the mind of the 
profound philosopher. 

It is worthy of remark that the criteria set up by Prof. 
Wundt, and the personal qualifications which he declares to be 
requisite to constitute a man an authority in science, are fatal 
to the empty pretensions of all those scientists who assume the 
right to express the most confident opinions respecting the 
Spiritual Phenomena. In the beginning of his article the Pro- 
fessor determines his own incompetency as a judge of spiritual 
things in explicit terms as follows : 

" But the highest degree of credibility is not sufficient to make any man 
a scientific authority ; there is requisite to this a special professional, and 
in most cases indeed a technical training, which must have approved it- 
self by superior accomplishments in the province concerned. He who has 
not acquired this professional and technical culture by long years of severe 
labor is neither capable of achieving anything himself nor of judging the 
works of others." 

As all this is strictly true, it follows, by necessary sequence, 
that Prof. Wundt is not qualified to express an opinion re- 
specting the essential nature and proper significance of Spirit- 
ual Phenomena, nor is he the authority to fix arbitrary limits 
to the broad field of scientific research. We may put his own 
confession in evidence that he has had no " special professional 
and .... technical training " in this department. True, 
his translator affirms that " He is ... . perhaps the most 
eminent psychologist in Germany." Impossible ! Psychology 
is the formulated knowledge of the faculties, susceptibilities 
and functions of the human spirit. How then can a man be 
eminent in the science which comprehends the inherent pow- 
ers of the soul, its higher relations and immeasurable capabil- 



68 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ities, when he does not even know that man has any possible 
existence separate from the corporeal body ? Why, he cannot 
distinguish the functions of an invisible spiritual being from 
the tricks of a mere juggler. To assume that such a man is 
an eminent psychologist is to disregard the meaning of terms 
and to trifle with a grave subject. 

Prof. Wundt further maintains that the men whose observa- 
tions have been confined to the phenomena of the physical 
world, " whatever department of natural science they may 
have been engaged in," are incompetent to grapple with the 
more subtle principles and intricate problems of Spiritualism. 
Had this judgment governed his conduct he would never have 
meddled with the subject, and the present writer would have 
found no occasion to review the unphilosophical assumptions 
of a man whose ignorance of the more important facts and es- 
sential principles of Spiritualism is at once self-confessed and 
self-evident. 

But this incapacity to deal with the subject intelligently did 
not deter Prof. Wundt from committing the same blunder 
which other scientists had made before him, each in turn hav- 
ing put on record vuhal he did not know about the one subject 
of highest importance to mankind. The self-conceit of such 
men and the dogmatic spirit which strives with desperate en- 
ergy to maintain its hold upon the common mind, prevents 
their remaining silent until they are better informed ; and so, 
one after another, they advertise their ignorance before the 
world, in the leading foreign and American journals, includ- 
ing the Popular Science Monthly, whose editor dignifies such a 
display of ignorance and incompetency by calling it science ! 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. 69 

The crudest cogitations of almost any materialistic writer 
against Spiritualism will command recognition in the presence 
of Professor Youmans, while no man, however competent to 
enlighten the public mind, can be heard in its defense. In his 
opinion the only scientific view of the subject is that which 
ascribes all the facts to the jugglery of the so-called mediums, 
and the growing faith of multitudes in every part of the world 
who yield to the contagion of popular delusions. 

It is well known that among the phases of spiritual phe- 
nomena ponderable bodies are often raised and supported in 
the air when it is impossible to discover the cause of motion 
within the domain of physics. In such cases the exponents 
of scientific materialism insist that there must be concealed 
physical causes. Professor Wundt presumes that Dr. Slade 
had prepared himself for experiments on the magnetic needle 
by having concealed magnets about his person. The absurd- 
ity of this presumption must be sufficiently apparent to any 
ordinary observer. Undoubtedly the same power that moved 
the needle in his presence also moved the table, chairs, and 
other objects. Let us see how this scientific (?) hypothesis 
will appear in its application to the moving of ponderable 
bodies. The magnet draws such other bodies to itself, in a 
right line, as are subject to the law of its attraction ; but it 
does not, at the same time, send them spinning in an opposite 
direction. It never gives to the objects moved either a rotary 
motion around the centripetal point of attraction, an modula- 
tory, zigzag or other eccentric movement. But in the spirit- 
ual circle ponderable objects as readily move from as toward 
the medium ; indeed, they move in all possible directions. 



7° THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

The utter absurdity of the hypothetical assumption of mag- 
nets concealed in " the coat-sleeves of the medium," or else- 
where, will be still more manifest if we consider the fact that 
the body attracted by a magnet can only move in a direct 
line along the plane between the central point of attraction 
and the body thus acted upon. In the circle the objects 
moved do not obey this law. On the contrary, they con- 
stantly deviate from that line, and often rise from that plane 
several feet above the head of the medium. And pray where 
is the magnetic center of attraction— in what does it inhere — 
when the medium himself, with everything upon his person, 
becomes an object of such levitation ? 

It will be perceived that Prof. Wundt does not even re- 
spect the physical laws in his lame attempt to dispose of the 
Spiritual Phenomena. While he contends for the supremacy 
of the laws of matter he yet disregards the essential principles 
of the system of Natural Philosophy, the chair of which he 
occupies in the Leipzig University. While he has only the 
most unworthy and false conceptions of the nature and claims 
of Spiritualism, his views of physical nature seem to be lim- 
ited to the narrow field of his own observations. He has no 
idea that Spiritualism is compatible with the laws of Nature ; 
and he evidently imagines that if our more important facts 
were demonstrated to be true we could no longer depend 
upon the sublime natural order of the Universe. I copy a 
passage to show the wild drift and shallow speculation of this 
material philosopher : 

"All the methods of natural science rest upon the presupposition of an 
unchangeable order of occurrence, which presupposition involves the 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. J I 

other, that everywhere, where the same conditions are given, the results 
must also agree. The naturalist, therefore, proceeds in his observations 
with unshakable confidence in the positiveness of his objects. Nature 
cannot deceive him : there rules in nature neither freak nor accident. 
You will admit that we cannot speak of a regularity of this sort in the 
domain of spiritualistic phenomena ; on the contrary, the most con- 
spicuous characteristic of these lies precisely in the fact that in their 
presence the laws of nature seem to be abrogated." ..." The laws of 
gravitation, of electricity, of light and of heat, are altogether, as we are 
assured, of a purely hypothetical validity ; they have authority as long as 
the inexplicable spiritualistic something does not cross them. . . . An 
authority which asserts this demands more than a scientific authority has 
ever demanded ; it demands that natural Science shall abandon the pre- 
supposition of a universal causality." . . . 

This is a total misrepresentation of the attitude which a 
rational Spiritualism assumes in respect to the laws of physi- 
cal nature and the proper claims of modern Science. We 
cordially accept the idea of the " unchangeable order of oc- 
currence " throughout the natural world. We insist upon it 
as a fundamental principle of our philosophy, which embraces 
the nature and relations of all things material and spiritual. 
We can see nothing in the phenomena of Spiritualism at war 
with this undeviating action of law and this uniform " order 
of occurrence " on which Prof. Wundt rests his faith, and 
Science rears her superstructure. But the Leipzig Professor's 
observations, in his own little field, cannot be supposed to 
determine the utmost limits of Nature. While the reality of 
the Spiritual Phenomena is no more a question of faith with 
the writer, but one long ago settled by the possession of posi- 
tive knowledge, I have still no idea that any law of Nature 
was ever suspended for a moment. The alleged events which 
in popular parlance, have been characterized as 'miraculous, 



72 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

even so far as they are real, involve no such infringement of 
the laws of the natural world. Our modern scientists, includ- 
ing Prof. W. Wundt, entertain an opposite opinion, and are 
hence obliged to dispute the occurrence of the facts and to 
reject all affirmative human testimony. 

In our attempts to reason with these scientific opposers of 
Spiritualism, a mutual understanding, as to the sense in which 
terms are to be employed, seems to be prerequisite. In the 
judgment of the enlightened Spiritualist, Nature is not limited 
to the recognized elements and forms of matter. // includes 
the soul as well as the body of things. The invisible forces a?id 
laws which operate in the production of sentient beings, with all 
the faculties of organic formation, life, sensation and thought, 
belong to Nature. Hence the voluntary functions of animal and 
human existence ; the powers of the mind in its loftiest moods, 
and whatever else belongs to the constitution and relations of the 
soul, are clearly embraced in this gra?id econotny of Nature. 
Granting that not only all the elements and forms of matter, 
however ponderable or imponderable, but also all the grada- 
tions of intelligent existence on the earth, however exalted in 
character and Godlike in power, really belong to Nature, it 
will at once appear that the most extraordinary phenomena, 
depending upon the relations of mind and matter, cease to be 
supernatural. It is only to accommodate our ignorance of 
the superior departments of Nature that such a word has 
found a temporary place in our vocabulary. Certain occur- 
rences may be said to be preternatural in the sense of being 
out of the regular course of events, or beyond the scope of 
the ordinary operations of Nature ; but no event that ever 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. 73 

transpired on earth can be properly said to be supernatural or 
miraculous, in the sense that involves a suspension of the 
natural laws. By using such terms in their theological ac- 
ceptation our scientists disclose the fact that their philosophy 
of Nature — if they have any — has not yet displaced in their 
minds the dogmatic assumptions of early religious teachers. 

Professor Wundt assumes that in the ordinary fields of 
scientific research with which he is familiar, the same results 
may be reproduced as often as the same natural principles, 
conditions and agents are combined for their production ; 
and he further affirms that no such uniform results can be 
obtained in the investigation of Spiritual Phenomena. This 
mistake results from the Professor's too limited observation 
and superficial thought. It is certain that like causes pro- 
duce like effects in every department of Nature, from the 
highest to the lowest. The world of mind is subject to this 
law, and our sphere of moral observation offers no exception 
to this rule. The student of spiritual science may find it 
more difficult to reproduce the precise conditions, visible and 
invisible, which, on a previous occasion, resulted in the de- 
velopment of a given fact, and for the obvious reason that, 
some of those conditions belong to another sphere and de- 
pend on the voluntary agency of beings whose presence and 
cooperation we may not always command. Every scientist 
knows that, as a rule, the more subtile and intangible the 
agents are with which we have to deal, the more difficult it 
is to exactly repeat an experiment under precisely the original 
conditions. 

But the terms which Prof. Wundt employs in the expres- 
4-' 



74 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

sion of his views indicate a far greater uniformity in the re- 
sults obtained in ordinary scientific investigations than the 
facts are believed to warrant. It has been said that Nature 
never exactly repeats herself. The same natural forces and 
organic laws are constantly operative in the vegetable king- 
dom, but the results of their operation present infinite variety. 
Go into the forest, and examine a thousand trees, and you will 
find no two alike. More than this, though the leaves on the 
same tree are of one general type, yet they all vary, more or 
less, one from another. The same is true in respect to the 
animal creation and man. The children of the same family 
are so unlike their parents and one another that each admits 
of instant recognition ; and even among the hundreds of mill- 
ions of human beings who occupy the earth we readily dis- 
tinguish the separate individualities. The same meteorologi- 
cal laws are in constant operation, but the effects are endlessly 
diversified. We never have two storms in all respects alike. 
The white cumuli of a summer day, through which the Sun 
pours a flood of light that bathes the heavens in golden and 
purple glories, are never the same two days in the year. Their 
momentary aspects are fleeting as the shadow of a dream — so 
evanescent that while we yet gaze at their aerial forms they 
vanish never to return. 

As physical science is founded on natural objects, their re- 
lations to time, space and each other, and the ever-varying 
phenomena of their existence, it follows of necessity that out- 
side of the several branches of mathematics the scientist must 
inevitably meet with a similar variety of objects, phenomena 
and results in all his investigations. Exactly the same results 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. 75 

may not be obtained in any two experiments, for the reason 
that it may be out of our power to reproduce precisely the 
same conditions. To obtain the more difficult results in chem- 
istry requires at once a profound knowledge of its principles, 
the utmost care in their application, and the most skillful man- 
ipulation. The same person may occupy, as nearly as possi- 
ble, the same position before the camera while he has one 
hundred photographic negatives taken, and yet no two pic- 
tures will be precisely alike. The truth is, conditions which 
may not be cognizable by the careless observer are changing 
momentarily. The passing emotions of the mind continually 
modify the expression of the countenance, while invisible at- 
mospheric and molecular changes produce their electro-chem- 
ical effects on the sensitive surface that receives the image. 
No man can be in the same state any two days in his whole 
life. The conditions of the great globe itself, of all orbs in 
space, and all forms of being on their surfaces, are changing 
every moment, and it is not in the power of science to restore 
to us the conditions of yesterday. The falling sands in the 
glass ; the beating of the human heart ; the restless flow of 
thought and feeling, and the changing aspects of every earthly 
object — all remind us that we are irresistibly carried along 
with the everlasting drift of events and circumstances. And 
thus with the fleeting moments, existing conditions pass away 
to return no more in their entirety through the endless cycles 
of eternity ! 

Let us examine the grounds on which Prof. Wundt assumes 
that if the spiritual phenomena are admitted to be real he 
must conclude that "the laws of Nature seem to be abro- 



?6 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

gated." Ponderable bodies are moved without any visible 
cause of motion, and are mysteriously upheld while they have 
nothing more tangible than common air to rest upon. If this 
is really true, the Leipzig Professor of Natural Philosophy pre- 
sumes that gravitation must be suspended ! In the presence 
of enlightened reason this is neither an inevitable nor a pos- 
sible conclusion. The learned Professor does not appear to 
recognize the fact that all forms of matter are not equally 
subject to the action of the same laws, and that as we ascend 
from the lower to the higher gradations of being, matter be- 
comes subject to superior laws which only operate in those 
higher departments of the natural world. I will offer illustra- 
tions of this point. 

By a law of nature the granite rocks remain imbedded in 
the everlasting hills, but water finds its way to the surface, 
and the principal rivers rise among the highest mountains. The 
old oak on the hillside stretches out its brawny arms to the 
elements and defies the boreal tempests, while it silently obeys 
the law of its nature by standing still in the same place while 
the century comes and goes. The granite and the oak may 
be removed by human agency, but this does not subvert the 
recognized principle in statics, and the law of the rock and 
the tree is never suspended. But the moment we step above 
the organic plane of vegetable life into the animal kingdom, 
we discover a power of voluntary motion that is superior to the 
statical law. The beasts of the field and the forest, and all 
the monsters of the deep, move from place to place as incli- 
nation and the necessities of their being may determine. The 
dead fish floats upon the surface of the stream, indicating at 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. *]J 

once the direction and rapidity of the current ; but the live 
salmon not only swims against the strongest current, but, fol- 
lowing the sheet of water, will go up over a fall of twenty 
feet. Does the genus salmo abrogate the laws of Nature ? 
The duck that naturally swims on the surface of the water as 
naturally — by voluntary effort — dives to the bottom of the 
stream in search of the means of subsistence. The specific 
gravity of a wild goose is much greater than that of atmos- 
pheric air ; but by a voluntary power the goose resists the 
terrestrial gravitation, and ascends into the higher strata of 
the atmosphere. Is any one goose enough to suppose that 
his flight involves a suspension of the universal force of gravi- 
tation ? 

The voluntary powers of man are more numerous and of 
wider scope than those of the inferior creation. The con- 
trolling influence of mind over matter is so self-evident that 
a formal argument to prove it would be a work of superero- 
gation. It is manifest in all the voluntary functions of human 
nature. The individualized spirit carries around with it in 
this world a body composed of the same primordial elements 
which, in a greater or less degree, enter into the chemical 
composition of all forms of organized being on earth. The 
power of the human spirit over matter is further manifested 
in all the forms of beauty and use. A thousand cities teeming 
with life ; the great navies, commercial marine, and practi- 
cal industries of all nations, with the innumerable creations of 
genius in the factories and galleries of the world — all these 
illustrate the power of mind over matter. This power be- 
longs to the constitution of the human spirit, and upon its 



yS THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

preservation our identity depends. The Spiritual Phenom- 
ena clearly prove that none of the natural powers of the soul 
are lost by the transition to another and more spiritual state 
of being. 

Now if the spirit carries along with it to the supramundane 
state its capacity to act on and through the elements and 
forms of matter, by disturbing the imponderables which per- 
vade them or otherwise — and this is clearly demonstrated by 
the facts — it follows that, under suitable conditions, the invis- 
ible spirits of men may raise ponderable bodies, and when they 
do so, they no more interfere with natural gravitation than 
the grocer does when he lifts a weight from his counter. The 
object rises because the spiritual force applied in lifting it is 
greater than the earth's attraction of the same object. In 
either case a ponderable body is raised by the application of 
an intelligent force — spiritual yet natural — which is superior 
to and hence capable of resisting the physical law of gravita- 
tion, which, however, continues to act on that body precisely 
as before. That is exactly what happens in spiritual circles 
when heavy bodies cease to obey the earth's attraction. In 
all this there is nothing either unnatural or miraculous. The 
laws of physical nature are merely directed or supplemented 
by the faculties of the human mind. And when venerable 
professors in European Universities solemnly intimate the 
abrogation of natural laws as the only way of accounting for 
such facts, we need not be surprised if the spiritual philoso- 
pher loses his gravity with the tables. It can not be true that 
" the laws of gravitation, of electricity, of light, and of heat 
are altogether, as we are assured, of a purely hypothetical 



SCIENCE VERSUS DOGMATISM. 79 

character ; " nor did any well-informed Spiritualist ever en- 
tertain such a crazy hypothesis over night. 

The age is bound to disregard the shallow assumption that 
all scientific investigation must be restricted to the elements, 
forms and phenomena of the physical world. We shall make 
it a part of our business to pull up the stakes which mere 
physicists have driven down to mark the narrow limits of their 
conception of the legitimate domain of scientific inquiry. The 
true friends of science require no dictator to fence in the 
field, and they will have no arbitrary masters to direct their 
studies. The irrepressible spirit of the age will override the 
narrow range of dogmatists, and break down the old land- 
marks. The arbitrary dicta of the bigots in science and the- 
ology will be powerless to arrest the world's progress. The 
new fields which Spiritualism is opening to our observation 
will be fearlessly explored by those who combine the requisite 
intellectual ability and moral courage. In this way we shall 
yet extend the limits of accredited science so far as to em- 
brace the formulated knowledge of the spiritual nature, rela- 
tions and life of man, here and hereafter. When we shall 
have realized this result of our labors we may reasonably ex- 
pect that Psychology — the science of the soul — in the best 
Universities will be something more and better than a name 
and a chair. 

S. B. Brittan. 

80 West Eleventh Street, New York, 



THE SPIRITUAL AGITATION. 

REV. JOSEPH COOK'S MONDAY LECTURES REVIEWED. 

FROM THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT, MAR. 12, l88o. 

Prof. Edwin D. Mead — Rev. Joseph Cook's Lectures — Visions of a Church Minister — 
Mild Reproofs and Pious Lamentation — How Jesus Passed Through Closed Doors 
— An Angel's Autograph — Regenerating Tide of Spiritualism — Veneration of 
Sacred Relics — Prof. Austin Phelps, and Rev. Charles Beecher — Prof. W. Wundt, 
of Leipzig — Dr. Robert Hare as a Scientist — Lights of the American Association — 
Professors Agassiz, Mitchel and Rogers — Pierce, Davies and Winslow— Unworthy 
Conduct of the Scientific Association — An Eminent Professor of Natural Philoso- 
phy — Makes no Distinction Between Superstition and Spiritualism — In the Coils 
of a "Monstrous Hydra "—Shades of Hercules and St. Patrick— Beatification of 
Ignorance. 

To the Editor of the Transcript ; 

IN his letter on the " Leipzig Phenomena," your Cambridge 
correspondent, Professor Edwin D. Mead, appears to be 
deeply exercised in view of the fact that just at present half 
of the sermons preached in New England " get their tone 
from Mr. Cook's Monday lectures." In his mind the discus- 
sion assumes a melancholy character that is very depressing 
to the souls of unbelievers. After referring to the " remarka- 
ble visions " of a church minister in " Quebec, over which all 
Canada is excited," and to " astounding messages " from 
Spirits, reported in the Greek language, he indulges in the 
following strain of mild reproof and pious lamentation : 

"What may we not expect among ourselves when our clergy come 
up to Boston, week by week, to be encouraged to believe that conch- 
shells slip untroubled through the chair-seats, and that Spirit-hands im- 
print themselves in flour ? The conch-shell slips through the chair-seat ; 

80 






THE SPIRITUAL AGITATION. 8 1 

how easy, then, forsooth, to see how the risen Jesus passed through the 
closed doors, to and from the circle of disciples. Spirit-hands, psychic 
hands, or what not, are in the air ; how luminous the story of the ghostly 
fingers which wrote ' Mene, Alene, Tekel, UpharsinJ upon Belshazzar's 
walls !" 

Your correspondent seems to be in a state of solemn expec- 
tation, naturally looking for further and more startling rev- 
elations. It is true that the facts are multiplied in all direc- 
tions, and the invisible powers present new illustrations and 
aspects of the truth often enough to utterly explode the ma- 
terialistic speculations of each succeeding day. The truth is 
finding its way through many hard shells which may not be 
classified with the strombus mollusks ; and those who are re- 
solved to resist it will hereafter require a triplicate theological 
sconce and the shield of scientific materialism as a defensive 
armor. " How the risen Jesus passed through closed doors," 
on entering and leaving "the circle of his disciples," is now 
forcibly illustrated, not by the learned exegesis of the pro- 
fessed ministers of his Gospel, but by the luminous commen- 
tary of the world's experience. 

That multitudes now see " the handwriting on the wall," is 
a fact no longer to be questioned. Those who know how to 
interpret the mystical message, read in it the significant proc- 
lamation that the power of a Church which makes war on 
such essential facts and principles as constitute the only solid 
foundation of its claims, must be greatly modified, or it is 
lestined to pass away from the earth, like the empire of the 
haughty ruler who desecrated the sacred vessels employed in 
the temple service. We need not be surprised that " the 
signs of the times " excite alarm among the " chief priests 
4* 



82 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

and elders of the people." They recognize the imminent 
peril of a Church that has lost the vital principle of its spirit- 
uality. This Church is so much in love with stereotyped au- 
thorities and ancient relics, and has so little confidence in 
any " spiritual gifts " as a possible inheritance from its found- 
ers, that it boldly derides the faith of the sincere believer as 
a cheat and a delusion. It would not hesitate to send repre- 
sentatives all the way to Troas to procure St. Paul's old 
cloak, and it has great respect for " the parchments " he left 
behind ; at the same time it will scoff at the suggestion of 
the possible presence of the ascended Apostle himself, as if 
faith in his immortality were a dream or a fiction. 

But the evidence which has been rapidly accumulating 
for more than thirty years will soon sweep away the popular 
skepticism of the times and recast the faiths and philosophies 
of the world. Like a regenerating tide, Spiritualism is fast 
unsettling and upheaving the old foundations. All the lifeless 
creeds and dogmatic authorities ; great wrongs baptized in 
the name of Jesus ; all hollow pretensions and pious shams, 
are only drift-wood upon the stream — carried away as shifting 
sands by the ocean currents, and as the resistless waves bear 
the empty shells on to the shore. Multitudes like Belshazzar 
have been made to tremble when they saw the handwriting on 
the wall ! 

" And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray," 

shrinking, with child-like apprehension, from the grasp of in- 
visible " spirit-hands ... in the air," and vainly trying 
to hide the vision of those " ghostly fingers." But still the 



THE SPIRITUAL AGITATION. 83 

luminous hand is visible. // is the index from eternity that 
points to destiny ! To-day the hand writes on the walls of a 
thousand temples. Those who are not blinded by ignorance 
and prejudice may see what is writtten. We need no inspired 
prophet to interpret the impressive lesson. The message may 
vary in form, but the significance is the same — " Mene, Mene, 
Tekel, Upharsin!" 

The fact that Rev. Joseph Cook's popular lectures deter- 
mine the tone of half the sermons of the New England clergy 
is profoundly significant. That gentleman has been obliged 
to recognize many facts for which he has no satisfactory ex- 
planation. The accredited masters in science have never 
yet solved the complex problem which the subject involves. 
Like Prof. Phelps, of Andover, and several other divines, Mr. 
Cook is inclined to look to the demonology of the Bible for a 
solution. This is a concession of the spiritual origin of the phe- 
nomena. The assumption that the Spirit-authors of the mod- 
ern manifestations are all evil, may shield those gentlemen 
from ecclesiastical condemnation ; but it can have little or no 
weight in the mind of the honest investigator, who is sure, 
in the end, to form his opinion of the character of the Spirits 
from the results of his own observation and experience. Such 
men as Rev. Charles Beecher and Rev. Joseph Cook have the 
sagacity to apprehend what is coming, and the boldness to 
lead the way in which the clergy of all denominations must 
follow. These men will soon be recognized as the conserva- 
tors of the Church. In thus preparing the way for the ulti- 
mate acceptance of Spiritualism, they are pursuing the only 
course that will save the outward form from ruin. Spiritual- 



84 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ism is God's great mill for pulverizing old superstitions, life- 
less theologies, and the soulless systems of scientific material- 
ism. It palsies the arms and shivers the weapons of its 
enemies ; and any institution that attempts to stand in its 
way will be ground to powder, since the wheels of progress 
never rotate backward. 

Your correspondent refers to the spiritual controversy in 
Germany ; and, while unduly emphasizing the importance of 
Prof. Wundt's materialistic views, he takes occasion to dis- 
parage the just claims of Fechner, Fichte, Zollner and Ulrici, 
in a most unrighteous manner. In his judgment the opinion 
of Prof. Wundt is worth twelve times as much as that of either 
Zollner or Ulrici. Mr. Mead's opinion of the other German 
philosophers above named may be inferred from the follow- 
ing brief extract from his letter : 

" Of Fechner and Fichte, in relation to the present controversy, it 
should be said that, however great their abilities once were, they were 
quite superannuated men, eighty years old and more, before launching 
upon the rickety theories with which their names have been lately iden- 
tified." 

It is worthy of observation that just so long as those distin- 
guished scientists were presumed to be as blind as bats and 
ground-moles in respect to all spiritual things, they were re- 
garded as eminent philosophers, whose many years and long 
experience had only added to their knowledge and ripened 
their judgment. But as soon as those illustrious teachers 
recognized the fact that Spirits of the immortal world were 
standing within their doors, every flippant scribbler against 
the facts and philosophy of Spiritualism made haste to dis- 
count their claims to public confidence. At an earlier period 



THE SPIRITUAL AGITATION. 85 

the late venerable Dr. Robert Hare, who, some eighty years 
ago, invented the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, was treated with 
still greater indignity. The name of the man who produced a 
flame so intense that it consumes the diamond and vaporizes 
most of the known solid substances, acquired such a reputa- 
tion that, in his time, it was said that Philadelphia was chiefly 
known among European philoscphers as the residence of Dr. 
Hare. No scientist ever questioned the soundness of his mind 
while he was inventing his instruments designed to detect and 
expose the assumed fraud of mediumship. At last when the 
Spirits made use of the Doctor's own invention to overthrow 
his chronic unbelief, and he was thus convinced of the truth 
of immortality, he straightway lost his standing among Amer- 
ican scientists. Then they had no doubt he was either mad 
or in his dotage. 

At the annual session of the American Association in 1856, 
Dr. Hare asked for one hour for a brief statement of the scien- 
tific methods and unexpected results of his experimental in- 
vestigations ; but the Association refused to hear him. Even 
the overshadowing presence and influence of Professors Agas- 
siz, Mitchel and Rogers failed to secure the privilege. Prof. 
Pierce maintained that such a subject could not properly be 
brought before a scientific association; and Prof. Davies, while 
expressing " profound respect for the gentleman from Phila- 
delphia," was, nevertheless, willing to stop his mouth. A lesser 
and more lurid light in science, Dr. Winslow, — chiefly known 
for his investigations of subterraneous combustion or volcanic 
fires, — had the effrontery to suggest that, if the subject was to 
come before that body, he would move to convene a " special 



86 



THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 



session of the Association in the nearest lunatic asylum ! " It 
is not among the more agreeable of the writer's reminiscences 
of the time, that the offender escaped reproof for this shame- 
ful breach of decorum. 

In referring to Spiritualism, Mr. Mead quotes what Prof. 
Wundt has to say about superstition, from which I extract the 
following passage : 

"It were almost chimerical to hope that science will ever completely 
root it out. Nothing could darken such a hope more than the appearance 
of superstition in scientific circles themselves. Science, striking off one 
head from the monstrous hydra, is obliged to see a new one start out in 
another place — a head which soon enough assumes her own face." 

The fact is susceptible of the clearest demonstration, that a 
rational Spiritualism is far removed from everything that may 
be properly characterized as superstition. It has none of that 
excessive reverence which degrades the divinity in man ; it 
fosters no slavish fear of God or the devil ; its worship is 
never idolatrous nor otherwise inconsistent with reason ; it 
neither believes in celibacy nor polygamy ; it insists on no 
rigorous observance of religious rites ; its beautiful faith em- 
braces no moral or mathematical impossibilities ; it neither 
accepts the infallibility of the letter of its own revelations, 
nor wastes time in pompous ceremonies which have no spirit- 
ual vitality ; it recognizes the Divinity in all things, and de- 
mands no emasculation of human nature in the interest of 
the soul. And yet Professor Wundt, who occupies the chair 
of Natural Philosophy in the University of Leipzig, and is re- 
puted to be one of the most eminent psychologists in Ger- 
many, makes no distinction between Spiritualism and super- 
stition ! The youth of fifteen who could not exercise more 



THE SPIRITUAL AGITATION. 87 

discrimination should be sent to the field rather than the 
University. 

Science is in despair, and this German professor is now 
struggling in the coils of what appears to his vision to be a 
" monstrous hydra." As often as he strikes off one head, he 
says " a new one starts out," and in mockery of his preten- 
sions assumes the express image of Science herself. What is 
to be done ? The process of actual cautery is powerless to 
extinguish the Spirits. Moreover, if they are all of the class 
usually recognized by the priesthood, they must have learned 
to stand fire. At present there is every indication that the. 
monster will triumph at last. We know that Hercules is dead 
and his great labors are finished. St. Patrick, too, has gone 
to his rest in heaven ; and the Leipzig professor is unequal to 
the herculean task of slaying this hydra. Non onmia possu- 
mus omnes. 

In conclusion your correspondent admonishes us, by all 
means, to remain in ignorance of the dangers to which we are 
exposed. So solemn a warning may bear to be repeated in 
the interest of all heedless people ; and so I beg to repro- 
duce this last impressive exhortation which Mr. Mead has 
addressed to your readers : 

"There are many things of which a man might wish to be ignorant, 
and these are such. Shun them as you would the secrets of the under- 
taker and the butcher. The best are never demoniacal or magnetic ; 
leave this limbo to the prince of the power of the air." 

Now when your correspondent says " the best are never 
demoniacal or magnetic," we are not sure whether he means 
"things " of the highest value, the most desirable " secrets," 



88 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

or " the best undertakers and butchers." Without attempt- 
ing to settle this question, we may respectfully inquire if there 
may not be some danger in closing our eyes to evils which 
may chance to lie in our path ? Shall we be sure to escape 
from the wolf that is on our track because we never look for 
him, and have managed to remain in ignorance of the natural 
history of the brute ? * How the poor cravens who may 
be pleased to follow your correspondent's advice can guard 
against the peculiar dangers of which they know nothing does 
not clearly appear, and this may appropriately be made the 
subject of another letter of admonition from the classical 
shades of Cambridge. 

Yours cordially, 

S. B. Brittan. 

Belvidere Seminary, ) 

Warren Co., N. J., March, 1880. ) 



* Since " ignorance is bliss," and Professor Mead is known to depend 
on the same for the security of the brethren, let us add one to the Beati- 
tudes. Write henceforth : Blessed are they who know nothing at all of 
the dangers to which they are exposed, for they are presumed to be safe. 



THE TRIBUNE ON SPIRITUALISTS. 

POLITICS FASHION AND SPORTING AT THE FRONT. 

WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE. 

Note from Mr. Whitelaw Reid — Vindication of Spiritualism Declined — Unwritten 
Law- of the Press — Fashionable and Vicious Topics Preferred — Subjects which 
secure instant Attention — Angry Divinity and depraved Humanity — Spiritualism 
hospitable to New Ideas — It Rationalizes Philosophy and Spiritualizes Religion 
— The Ghosts from Hades — Spiritual Light and Liberty — Related as Cause and 
Effect — The Tree by the Crystal River — Where Spiritualism most Prevails — Ob- 
servations on the Old World— England, France and Germany— Views of Heaven 
— Sensuous Conception of the New Jerusalem— Materialists demand the Evi- 
dence of the Senses — Wrestling with an Angel. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

THE subjoined communication was elicited by an edito- 
rial in the New York Tribune of the 23d of July, and 
was addressed, as will be perceived, to the Editor of that 
journal, who declined it in a polite note which is herewith 
submitted : 

"This is returned, with thanks for the courtesy of the offer, and re- 
grets that, with the pressure on our columns, we have not been able to 
make it exactly available for the uses of the Tribicne. — Whitelaw Reid." 

Of course a daily newspaper which is necessarily so much 
occupied with the discussion of the issues involved in the 
present political campaign, will have little room until after the 
Presidential election for the treatment of spiritual and moral 
questions, however important in their nature and bearing on 
the higher interests of society. We will not be so ungra- 



90 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

cious as to question the sufficiency of the Editor's reasons for 
thus declining to publish our vindication of Spiritualism. Nor 
need we be surprised should even more space — than the same 
would require — be devoted to other matters of either doubtful 
or demoralizing tendency. The press has its own lex non 
scripta which no power may reverse. There are certain things 
which must be published, you know, even if it be necessary to 
issue an Extra. If there should be either a contest in the 
prize-ring, a cock-fight, or some other disgusting exhibition of 
brutality, it would be necessary to make some place in the 
crowded columns of the daily press for a particular descrip- 
tion of the same, because that would be " live matter," and 
our muscular and sporting sovereigns must have the news. 

But we may discover more agreeable illustrations in many 
places, especially at Saratoga, Newport, and other summer re- 
sorts. For example, should some person give a fashionable 
party, it would be necessary to send special reporters commis- 
sioned to relate all that delicacy may permit about the per- 
sons and costumes of the reigning belles — describe to what 
extent the floor was carpeted with satin trains, so gracefully 
drawn behind willowy creatures, whose " tantalizing shapes " 
— according to Festus — " bring up the devil and the ten com- 
mandments." And then proper respect must be paid, not so 
much to the wealth of years as to the affluence of fine laces, 
diamond jewelry and costly equipage. It would be a most 
ungracious neglect on the part of the newspapers to disregard 
all these gentle people and their superfine wampum. Now 
and then it seems to be necessary to heed the demand of the 
best society for a complete list of — 



THE TRIBUNE ON SPIRITUALISTS. 9 1 

" The gaudy dames of fashion, who have driven 
Up the broad carriage-road to Fancy's heaven." 



SPIRITUALISM VINDICATED. 

" Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, 
But vindicate the ways of God to man." — Pope. 

To the Editor of the Tribune : 

Your editorial in the Tribune of the 23d inst., elicited by 
the present Camp-Meeting near Philadelphia, is in rather 
pleasant contrast with the old-time commentaries of the news- 
paper press. A semi-facetious manner of treating the whole 
subject is certainly a great improvement on the intolerant and 
acrimonious spirit which characterized the earlier treatment 
of Spiritualism. But you will pardon the suggestion that you 
may possibly make a mistake, in respect to the popular judg- 
ment, when you presume that, as a rule, the believers are 
"publicly regarded as a gloomy and uncanny band." If I am 
qualified to form an intelligent opinion on the subject, the views 
of all rational Spiritualists are eminently calculated to lift the 
cloud with which a false theology has obscured the future life, 
and remarkably effective in dissipating the terrible gloom which 
has made not a few men mad and millions melancholy. 

But can any man regret the existence of the power which 

demonstrates his own immortality while it breaks the shackles 

which have fettered the freedom of the universal mind ? And 

is there aught to inspire gloom in the announcement that' 

" Man no more shall vail 
His free-born thought, or bow with visage pale, 
And knees that knock together, when the Priest 
Of Rome or Oxford dictates ? " 



92 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

Only priestly authorities and a scientific materialism have 
reason to shrink from the present ordeal. Who that is in love 
with truth cares how soon the consumer's brand is applied to. 
" the wood, hay and stubble " of all human devices ? Who 
weeps when the destroying fires that waste the meadows and 
the fields go out and the morning-glories spring up out of the 
ashes, and deserts blossom ? Who sorrows for the waning 
night, or grieves because the Orient is ablaze with morning 
light ? Spiritualism comes to solve the greatest of all prob- 
lems — " If a man die shall he live again ? " It is sure to ex- 
tract whatever elements of truth there may be in the ancient 
superstitions. It is rapidly pulverizing the old creeds, born 
of the weak faith which recognizes an angry Divinity and a 
totally depraved humanity. It is time that the reign of the 
woman of the Apocalypse — whom the Seer of Patmos de- 
scribed as " sitting on a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of 
blasphemy " — with her legitimate daughters, and the whole 
brood of dogmatic creeds and soul-oppressing rites, should 
give place to rational liberty and a scientific philosophy. 

It should be observed that, unlike the systems which pre- 
ceded its advent, Spiritualism cordially accepts all demon- 
strated facts in every field of investigation ; it is everywhere 
hospitable to new ideas ; it encourages the most fearless exer- 
cise of reason on all subjects, not excepting religion ; it lov- 
ingly embraces every principle of true science, and a's freely 
assimilates all sound philosophy. By its agency faith and 
reason are harmoniously united ; and while religion is ration- 
alized, philosophy is spiritualized. It gives us a view of the 
Spirit-world and the future life which is far more honorable 



THE TRIBUNE ON SPIRITUALISTS. 93 

to the Creator, and every way more congenial with all human 
instincts, desires, affections and aspirations, than the lurid 
pictures of heathen poets, and the pulpit delineations of a 
merciless retribution. It casts out the Prince of Darkness 
from the world's theology, and the fires of hell are extin- 
guished. In the growing light of a rational Spiritualism — 
which the Church and the world appear to despise — 

" The great beast 
Of Calvinism, born from out the sea 
Of the Dark Ages and their tyranny, 
Shall shrink into a spectral cloud, and pass 
From earth like vapor from a burning-glass." 

You observe : " It seems a little hard on the ghosts of the 
departed to summon them back to earth just now out of their 
retreats in Hades." But how or why is it so "hard on the 
ghosts ? " And in the light of this suggestion how will the 
Tribune's orthodoxy escape suspicion ? I believe the Greek 
Hades is uniformly rendered hell by the translators of the 
New Testament ; and if hell is as warm a region as the evan- 
gelical pulpit represents it to be, it must be a great relief to 
the poor ghosts to have an occasional excursion to this green 
earth, and a day of recreation in the sylvan shades of Nesha- 
miny Falls or Onset Bay Grove. If Spiritualism really brings 
with it a general jail-delivery of the poor imprisoned souls in 
Hades, who knows but the world may be about to realize the 
end for which an early and most eminent Spiritual Teacher, 
long ago, " went and preached unto the spirits in prison." — 
(I. Peter iii. 19). 

You state a significant fact when you say, that in " the West 
belief in Spiritualism is more widely spread than in any other 



94 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

• 

quarter except New England." It has made the greatest ad- 
vances where the light of intelligence has been most thoroughly 
diffused. The great tree of our Spiritual Liberty was first 
rooted in this country of liberal institutions ; and now, after 
a lapse of only one-third of a century, it spreads its grateful 
shade over the world. It is true that some foul birds come 
to roost in its branches ; and where do they not perch them- 
selves outside of the kingdom of heaven ? It may be pre- 
sumed that buzzards, owls and bats, not less than swallows, 
sky-larks and birds of paradise, love to sit in pleasant places. 
Nevertheless, Spiritualism is " the tree of life " that flour- 
ishes close by the crystal river, bearing immortal fruits, " and 
the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." It 
finds the most suitable soil and congenial atmosphere where 
the light is strongest and the culture of mind and morals is 
most general. Hence it is that Spiritualism has made the 
greatest progress in the Eastern States where the standard 
of education is highest, and the humane sentiments exert the 
strongest influence on the popular mind and heart. Then the 
great West is pointed to as the scene of its triumphs. Spirit- 
ualism is strong in the Western States, because in that quar- 
ter the arbitrary restraints of dogmatic theology are feeblest, 
and for the reason that we there find the most independent 
thought among the people. In the Middle States its victories 
are less conspicuous ; while in the South, Spiritualism has the 
weakest hold upon the minds and affections of the masses. 

The same rule is equally true in its application to the Old 
World. Spiritualism has obtained the strongest foot-hold 
among the most enlightened nations of Europe — in England, 



THE TRIBUNE ON SPIRITUALISTS. 95 

France, and Germany. Naturally enough in foreign coun- 
tries it has made the greatest progress among the most intel- 
lectual classes ; numbering in the long list of its adherents 
many of the nobility ; a large proportion of the literati, and 
eminent artists of different countries ; distinguished scientists 
of England and profound philosophers of the German schools. 
A full list of the names of eminent men and women, from 
among all nations and every rank in society, who now accept 
the cardinal facts and fundamental principles of the Spiritual 
Philosophy, would astonish even those who are best informed 
on the subject. 

We hardly think that Spiritualists, as a body, would accept 
the parties you name, or any others, as chief among the proph- 
ets of the New Dispensation. But while this is a subject in 
which the writer feels no special interest, I will ask your fur- 
ther indulgence while I briefly refer to the subject of heaven, 
as viewed respectively by Christians and Spiritualists. You 
seem to think that the heaven of the latter is a very materi- 
alistic establishment,* while the heaven of Christians is emi- 
nently intangible and spiritual in its nature. Here permit 
me to introduce a brief passage from your editorial : 

"The heaven revealed to St. John was too intangible for solid beef- 
eating men and women to grasp ; but a heaven filled by spirits who rap 
on your table and pinch your legs is appreciable to the most downright in- 
tellect." 

Now if language, in this case as in the other, is to be inter- 
preted literally, it would be difficult to conceive of a more ma- 



* It is readily acknowledged that this inference may be fairly drawn 
from the writings of a number of professed Spiritualists. 



g6 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

terial heaven than the one described in the Apocalyptic vision. 
It is a city laid out in a square, surrounded by high walls, 
with " twelve gates," in honor of " the twelve tribes." It is 
said that u the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And 
the foundations of the walls of the city were garnished with 
all manner of precious stones " (Rev. xxi. 18, 19). We can- 
not say what may be the judgment of the " solid beef-eating 
men and women," but we may possibly apprehend the reason 
why Wall Street and Fifth Avenue prefer the New Jerusalem 
view of the subject. Among a people whose chief trust is in 
" gilt-edged securities," a city composed of gold and precious 
stones will always possess unequalled attractions. 

As to the " spirits who rap on your table and pinch your 
legs," we may as well admit, in respect to their deportment, 
that they do not " put on the airs " which characterize the con- 
duct of the highest dignitaries in Church and State. But very 
worthy spirits may and do let themselves down for a laudable 
purpose — it may be to give a tangible manifestation to some un- 
reasoning skeptic who can only be convinced by hard knocks. All 
instruction must be adapted to the necessities of the ignorant 
and undeveloped mind. The sage does not stoop too low 
when he teaches the lisping child the alphabet of his language. 
The conduct of the spirits who come to us may be neither un- 
reasonable, unnecessary, nor without eminent examples. The 
Materialist demands the evidence of the senses ; he will be 
satisfied with no other ; and it may be necessary to strike hard 
to produce deep and lasting conviction. Saul of Tarsus had 
to be knocked down by a Spirit before he would believe that 
one was present. The persecuting Pharisee was struck with 



THE TRIBUNE ON SPIRITUALISTS. 97 

such force as to occasion a temporary paralysis of the optic 
nerves ; and, according to the report of the sacred canon, one 
of the Lord's angels wrestled all night with the patriarch 
Jacob ; and when the Angel relinquished his hold in the 
morning, it is said that " Jacob's thigh was out of joint ! " (Gen. 
xxxii. 24, 25.) Spiritualists can wait for the future to verify 
the proverb of the Latins — '" Vincit omnia Veritas" 

S. B. Brittan. 

Belvidere, N. J., ) 
July 26, 1880. j 



Possibilities of Spiritualism. — The old systems of the- 
ology are smitten with dry rot. The antiseptic properties of 
oral praise and prayer will not save them, for they are dying. 
Something better must soon occupy their places ; and here — 
let me observe— is our great opportunity. Spiritualism only 
needs to be placed in a true light and on a proper basis, with 
means and methods adapted to its divine uses and deathless 
issues, and it will speedily become the philosophy and relig- 
ion of the civilized world. Bound by no creed ; pledged to 
the support of no sect or party ; hospitable to every newly 
discovered truth ; cordially accepting the results of philo- 
sophical inquiry and scientific investigation ; truly reverent 
in spirit, but independent in the exercise of reason, why may 
it not realize the wants of every loving heart and the aspira- 
tions of all enlightened minds ? 
5 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. 

A CALIFORNIA JACK-WITH-A-LANTERN. 

WRITTEN FOR THE ARGONAUT OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

A Critic's Views of Science— Relations of Facts to Scientific Systems— Horology and 
Instruments for Measuring Time— Mistaken Views of the A rgonaut— Friendly 
Criticism— Hypothesis of Fraud and Jugglery— Theory of Involuntary Cerebral 
Action— A Harvard Professor with the Spirits— Science on and Dignity under 
the Table— An Epic Poem from the Spirits— Remarkable Improvisation— The 
Solar Harp — Doctrine of Chances Illustrated — Is Meteorology a Science ? — Com- 
parison of Physical and Spiritual Phenomena— Facts in Science which Centuries 
may not Repeat. 

" Thy own importance know, 
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below." — Pope. 

To the Editor of the Argonaut : 

SOME one has sent me your paper of the date of May 
2 2d, in which I find a marked article entitled " Spirit- 
ualistic Blunders" I am much pleased with the general ap- 
pearance of your journal, and recognize the ability displayed 
in the treatment of such topics as come within the range of 
ordinary thought and familiar observation. But will you per- 
mit me to remark, per coittra, that some one — whom I sup- 
pose to be on your editorial staff — is equally unfortunate in 
what he writes about Science and Spiritualism ? After asking 
the question, " What is Science ? " he answers — without hesi- 
tation, and in a manner which is at least admirable for its 
directness, however widely his definition may be found to di- 
verge from all the recognized principles and approved methods 

9 8 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. 99 

of the schools. From this lucid but very questionable expo- 
sition of what constitutes science — in the opinion of the writer 
— I extract the following passage : 

"Established facts; logical conclusions; systems that work; that 
never fail, that never disappoint. Three and two are five. ... A 
clock that keeps time; an engine that will run; a steamship that sweeps 
the ocean; a telegraph wire; laws of nature discovered; complications in- 
vented; systems of mechanism, chemistry or thought that never fail — that 
repeat, or illustrate, or demonstrate whenever you choose to test them ; 
contrivances and processes that know no failure and no disappointment 
— these are science." 

It seems evident that the author of the fore^in^ definitions 
could never have familiarized his mind with either the princi- 
ples or terminology of the sciences. The relation of " estab- 
lished facts '' to science is often so remote and obscure as to 
be quite imperceptible. Viewed alone and without reference 
to any rules of classification, or to the discover}- of the laws 
which govern their occurrence, they never constitute a science 
in any comprehensive sense of the term. The writer in the 
Argonaut does not limit his statement to facts of any particu- 
lar class, or to any one department of human observation. Let 
us therefore take a few examples at random, and leave the 
writer under review to dispute the facts or show their relations 
to science. The following will be sufficient for the present 
illustration. Mr. Gladstone succeeded Lord Beaconsfield as 
the responsible head of the British cabinet : Gen. Garfield is 
the Republican candidate for the Presidency ; Charles A. 
Dana is editor-in-chief of the JS'ew York Sun j roosters are 
most disposed to crow in the morning ; there are men base 
enough to admire the heroism of the prize ring ; the papers 
still publish the details of cock-fights ; the State continues to 



100 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

break the necks of capital offenders, even when they are young 
converts to the Christian religion ! These are all well " estab- 
lished facts ; " but what have they to do with science ? Noth- 
ing in particular, so far as we are able to discover. 

It is true that facts are quite indispensable in the formulated 
knowledge which we denominate science. But these are not 
all that we require to constitute a scientific system. The facts 
must be classified agreeably to the recognized principles involved 
in the subject of our observations. They must be so disposed 
that the mind may comprehend their relations to the essential 
principles and immutable laws which determine and regulate 
their occurrence. Facts, then, are only some of the materials 
from which different sciences may be and are constituted. It 
is well known that bricks are necessary in the construction of 
a suitable dwelling ; but a brick is not a house, and it must be 
equally evident that a fact is not a science. 

Again, we are informed that " A clock that keeps time " is 
" science ; " but we fail to see it in that light. A clock is an 
instrument which illustrates Horology — the science of measur- 
ing time. Science explains the principles and laws involved in 
the construction of instruments for this purpose. A clock is 
one form of an instrument for measuring time ; but it is not 
the science of Horology. The presumption that it is, over- 
looks the necessary distinction between the mere instrument 
and the branch of science it is designed to illustrate. Y\ e de- 
pend on the barometer to indicate the existing atmospheric 
pressure, and the probable changes in the weather ; but he 
would be a crazy scientist who should so utterly confound the 
mercurv and the barometrical scale with the variations of the 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. 101 

atmosphere as to recognize no possible distinction between an 
object which properly belongs to the department of construc- 
tive art and the science of atmospheric phenomena. There is 
substantially the same difference between the clock and the 
science of measuring time, that exists between the barometer 
and the science of the weather. 

Your article suggests that sciences must be very numerous 
when one can be found in almost any inanimate object, even 
in " a telegraph wire," which is also said to be " science." It 
is true that wires are employed in the science of Telegraphy ; 
but the wires are only one part of the apparatus used in the 
practical application of this science. Here we note the same 
want of discrimination in the use of terms, and a total indif- 
ference to that precision of statement which characterizes all 
true science. Agriculture, especially in its superior relations 
to chemistry, is a profound and most important science. Plows 
and hoes are agricultural implements ; but must we have all 
our ideas of scientific principles and the proprieties of speech 
harrowed up by being told that shovels, hoes and pitch-forks 
are sciences ! 

I need not traverse all the terms and forms of expression 
under which the writer, who elucidates Science and Spiritual- 
ism for your journal, claims to have discovered the former. If 
his questionable judgment is to be accepted, then the essen- 
tial elements of science are also to be found in " complications 
invented." This conception has every appearance of original- 
ity ; but is it true ? We must confess we had not dreamed of 
it, and should never have thought of looking there for those 
elements. The subject may be obscure, but Webster comes 



102 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

to our aid with the following plain definitions of " complica- 
tion :" " Intricate or confused blending of parts ; entanglement; 
the act or the state of being involved." From this view of the 
subject we might reasonably expect that great scientific at- 
tainments need not be so rare. If " complication," or a " con- 
fused blending of parts," constitutes science, it follows that 
the greater the complication or confusion, the more profound 
the knowledge it involves, and the ancient Babel must forever 
stand forth at the head of all scientific institutions. If " en- 
tanglement " is science, the miserable fellow who is lost in a 
bramble- jungle, and cannot find his way out, is in a fair way 
to graduate with all the honors. 

" The act or state of being involved " is thus defined by the 
same philological authority : "To envelope in anything which 
exists upon all sides ; as, to involve in darkness and obscurity." 
Now, when we look for science in the "complications in- 
vented ; " — and when we find it, in " confusion," " entangle- 
ment " and " darkness " — it is astonishing how scientists are 
multiplied. The motley crowd not only embraces all those 
well-dressed aspirants who are striving to reach the temple of 
fame, but 

' ' The gathering number, as it moves along, 
Involves a vast, involuntary throng." 

Since science is made to consist in "complications" — 
" confusion and entanglement, " as the term is explained by Web- 
ster — we need not seek the shadow of the University, unbar 
the doors of classic halls, or search in the groves of Acade- 
mus for wise men. When confusion is science, mere wran- 
glers ought to be sages, and madmen supremely happy ; at 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. 103 

the same time the lawless rabble must be on the royal high- 
way to knowledge and power. 

While respectfully submitting these brief observations re- 
specting your views of science — which are offered in no un- 
friendly spirit — I trust I may be permitted to notice your 
summary three-ply method of disposing of Spiritualism. And 
first you observe — respecting the spiritual phenomena — "we 
must aver that a large portion undoubtedly " belong to " the 
imposture part." But I beg to say that the cases of '" impos- 
ture " are in no sense a part of Spiritualism, but, on the con- 
trary, the work of its enemies. If the Editor, in assaying a 
specimen of ore from any one of the mines, should find four 
ounces of gold and three of other metallic substances, would 
the assayer be likely to state in his report that the ore tested 
gave seven ounces of gold, but that " a large portion " of the 
same was some baser metal ? Should your agricultural Edi- 
tor, or the statistician in your office, be required to estimate 
the wheat crop of this country, would he represent that the 
United States annually produces about 450,000,000 bushels of 
wheat, but that one-twentieth part, more or less, of the whole 
is beans, and " a large portion " of the remainder " is undoubt- 
edly" tares ? Of course no sane man would make such a 
report. It is only on the abused subject of Spiritualism (pos- 
sibly on science) that the newspapers expect to be excused 
for publishing such nonsense. When the Secretary of the 
Treasury figures up the amount of the national currency he 
never includes the counterfeits. For a similar reason we insist 
that all impostors and jugglers be excluded in estimating the 
numbers of Spiritualists and mediums, and that all the tricks 



104 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

and frauds be left out of the record and analysis of Spiritual 
Phenomena. 

Your next method of disposing of the facts of Spiritualism 
is by referring them to the involuntary action of the brain and 
nervous system. But pray, Sir, what possible relation can the 
involuntary action of the brain have to one in a hundred of 
these facts ? Will you ascribe phenomena to unconscious 
cerebration which the individual is forever incapable of pro- 
ducing by the concentrated action of his faculties and the 
utmost effort of the will ? Yet your assumption involves this 
manifest absurdity. It is a fact established beyond all ra- 
tional controversy that ponderable bodies— sometimes weigh- 
ing several hundred pounds — are moved with irresistible force, 
and yet in such a manner as to clearly demonstrate the fact 
that this surprising power is guided by an invisible intellir 
gence, human in all its essential characteristics. If, indeed, 
the involuntary action of the brain so far transcends the ut- 
most exertion of its voluntary powers, let the fact be demon- 
strated. If the agents and forces are all in this world, the 
scientists ought to be able to prove the fact and find the 
agents. If there is any substantial evidence to support any 
one of the thousand materialistic theories and speculations, 
we are quite ready to receive and digest it ; but the mind be- 
comes flatulent that feeds forever on hollow assumptions. 

I was once present at a seance when a Harvard University 
Professor, with a friend weighing over two hundred pounds 
avoirdupois, rode about the room on a table ; and then both 
were hurled headlong on the floor by this invisible agency ; 
and I have an explicit statement of the facts, to which the 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. . 105 

Professor referred to subscribed his own proper name. Is it 
to be supposed that the involuntary and unconscious action 
of either his cerebellum or cerebrum moved the vehicle on 
which he rode, together with the superincumbent weight of 
some four hundred pounds ? Did this silent cerebration, in 
spite of the man himself, send him and his companion sprawl- 
ing on the floor ? If a single brain-power can develop such 
amazing force without the least effort to do so, every sluggard 
ought to be able to plant, hoe, and grind his corn by his own 
cerebral motive power. If there is any truth in the assump- 
tion it would appear that the way to accomplish the greatest 
possible results is to make no effort whatever. This is a fair 
sample of the reasoning employed by the opposition to Spirit- 
ualism. If there is anything in this theory, the philosophers 
of the Micawber school must be right, and the power of a 
dozen loafers might be utilized to run a line of stages ; fash- 
ionable idlers and all vulgar drones might become useful 
members of society, and hereafter make some show at the 
farmers' and mechanics' fair. 

I have before me an Epic Poem of some five thousand 
lines. It is a grand conception ; the imagery is equally bold 
and beautiful, while it is entitled to a high rank as a metrical 
composition. It is believed that no living poet, unaided by 
special inspiration or direct spiritual agency, could produce 
such a work in six weeks ; and yet it was improvised through a 
medium in just twenty- six hours and sixteen minutes ! I know 
it is the fashion with the secular press to assume that all the 
poetry emanating from the Spirits is mere doggerel and utterly 
worthless. For this reason I may be permitted to extract — 

s* 



IOO THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

almost at random and not on account of the exceptional merit 
of the passage— a few lines as an illustrative example of the 
quality of the poem to which reference is here made. The 
heavenly muse contemplates our planetary system as a grand 
musical instrument — the Solar Harp. One chord in the 
stellar lyre (the Spirit's reference is to the Earth) is repre- 
sented as unstrung. But the angels — the invisible ministers 
of the divine harmonies — touch the Earth with immortal fire 
and it is renewed. The chord which had lost its tone is re- 
stored and becomes responsive ; and Earth, with radiant face 
— coming up out of the darkness and discord with the un- 
broken symbols of her power — joins in the Solar Anthem. 

THE SOLAR HARP. 

" There are twelve great chords in the Solar Harp — 
One chord alone unstrung ; 
That chord is touched with a living spark, 
And again it finds a tongue. 
Joy ! joy ! joy ! 
That chord is touched with a living spark, 
And the Earth grows fair and young. 

" There are twelve great Angels above the stars, 
And they sit on their thrones of gold ; 
But the throne of one, by Death's iron bars, 
Was crushed in the ages old. 
Joy ! joy ! joy ! 
For Earth's throne again is among the stars, 
And she sits in the Angel-fold. 

" There are twelve great Nations in solar space, 
But one of them sat in the gloom ; 
The sun of its glory veiled its face 
In the darkness of the tomb. 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. 107 

Joy ! joy ! joy ! 
For the twelfth great Nation lifts its face, 
And glows with immortal bloom." * 

— Epic of the Starry Heaven. 

The third and last hypothetical method by which you pro- 
pose to explain the facts of Spiritualism — to borrow and em- 
phasize your own words — is " the doctrine of chances, the slip- 
pery foundation on which all this superstructure of superstition 
and imposture rests." Here you obviously abandon the first 
and second hypotheses, and now rest " all " on what you are 
pleased to term the " slippery foundation." Every one who 
has made the phenomena a subject of serious observation 
knows very well that the claims of Spiritualism rest on no 
such uncertain foundation. Let me frankly tell you that such 
hypothetical facts as you are pleased to use in your peculiar 
method of illustration, are not such as any rational believer is 
accustomed to depend upon. May I ask why you do not 
look at the real facts in the case, instead of trifling with a 
grave subject by the use of bogus examples ? 

Now suppose you make an application of your doctrine of 
chances to the composition of the Epic, and tell us how by 
chance such a work was accomplished in twenty-six hours 
and a quarter, when there exists not even a shadow of proba- 
bility that the combined powers of the medium and all the 
witnesses could ever have produced it at all. The idea that it 
is possible to execute such a work by accident — in other words, 
in the absence of any design and without effort — will not be en- 



* These lines have been set to appropriate music, composed by Prof. 
George Harrison, the eminent English ai-tist and teacher of vocal music. 



108 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

tertained for a moment by any rational mind. To illustrate 
your doctrine of chances — which Dr. Adam Clark defines to 
be " men's ignorance of the real and immediate cause " — em- 
ploy a man to throw paint all day at canvas ; let him continue 
the experiment as long as he lives ; then let another succeed 
him in the exercise of the same function ; and so on for cen- 
turies in unbroken succession. If in one thousand years you 
chance to get, by this means, a faithful copy of Raphael's 
"Madonna," or of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment," you 
may possibly find some one disposed to listen to the doctrine 
of chances as an explanation of the Spiritual Phenomena. 

You object that " Spiritualism will not be put to work — will 
not subserve any human purpose— will not come when wanted, 
. . . it will not repeat itself" or, in other words, the phe- 
nomena can not be reproduced ad libitum. That Spiritualism 
has been most effectually "put to work" to overthrow the 
scientific materialism of the age, and to revise the religious 
beliefs of all Christendom, is obvious enough to all who are 
pleased to look at the evidence. That in this way it sub- 
serves a divine purpose by quickening the spiritual faculties 
in human nature, and by furnishing scientific confirmation of 
our faith in immortality — is already demonstrated to the entire 
satisfaction of several millions of the human race. When 
you object that, in respect to positive evidence, it is alto- 
gether unlike science, because its phenomena cannot always 
be repeated, or reproduced at pleasure, you assume too much. 
This is no less true of a very large portion of accredited sci- 
ence. I have not time to survey the whole circle of the sci- 
ences with a view to an analytical and exhaustive expose of the 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. IO9 

fallacy of your reasoning, and hence a more summary method 
must be adopted. The barometer may indicate the same 
general atmospheric conditions, but the nimbus and cumulo- 
stratus clouds never assume precisely the same forms any two 
days in the whole year. The laws of Nature are ever the 
same, but her method produces endless variety, and never an 
exact reproduction of the same phases and aspects. And 
because this is the truth, which no one may dispute, will you 
assume that meteorology is no science ? 

If we may not exactly duplicate the same fact in Spiritualism 
at will, it is nevertheless true that facts of a similar character 
may be obtained at almost any time under suitable conditions. 
But in science there are many facts which may never be re- 
peated at our solicitation. This does not warrant our disput- 
ing their actual occurrence. Should you chance to observe, 
on some clear night, one of those small cosmical bodies which, 
for a moment, become incandescent by their motion through 
the Earth's atmosphere — a shooting-star or luminous meteor 
— and you were to make the same the subject of a paragraph 
in the Argo?iazit, you would not expect your readers to dis- 
pute your statement, and obstinately refuse to believe unless 
you would make a definite appointment, bring forward your 
meteor, and so continue to repeat the exhibition at stated 
periods, or as often as the caprice of some caviling skeptic 
might dictate. There may be creatures in human shape so 
enslaved that they hug the chains they wear ; 

" As the pipes of some carved organ move 
The gilded puppets' dance." 

But Nature is not at fault in such servility ; nor is science 



IIO THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

the servant of petty dictators. On the contrary, Nature pur- 
sues her majestic course regardless of our vain conceits ; nor 
can the administration of her perfect laws be stayed to save 
an empire. 

" Such is the world's great harmony that springs 
From union, order, and consent of things." 

Astronomers tell us that there is a pale pilgrim of the sky, 
whose naming hair trails through one hundred millions of miles 
of ether ; that this celestial traveler has made but a single cir- 
cuit or revolution since Noah's flood ; and we are disposed to 
believe what they say. Science presumes that this mysterious 
apparition will come round again in the far-away future. Now 
here is another heavenly body (we know not how many such 
exist) that will not reappear at our bidding ; it will not come 
and stop and pose for your artist ; and so you may, if you will, 
ridicule the pretensions of the astronomers. In this case you 
will nurse your unbelief a long time if you wait for a personal 
introduction to this missionary of light from heaven. Before 
you may hope to realize the visible presence of this strange 
traveler, the last of the Argonauts may founder in the great 
sea of popular skepticism, realizing at last that " the golden 
fleece " is not for the faithless. 

We shall finish our own brief commentary on passing events 
and the drift of the world's thought ; but cosmos will remain. 
The procession of the seasons will move along ; nations will 
rise and fall, and the centuries come and go. But when that 
pale wanderer comes back from his long pilgrimage to the 
frontiers of the astral system, we shall watch his progress 
from observatories in the heavens, and how will this world 



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM. Ill 

be changed ! It is more than probable that the foremost 
nations of Europe will have finished their career and live only 
in history. Even the model Republic of the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury may only exist in story, because among the more endur- 
ing monuments of great Peoples their languages may prove to 
be immortal. 

Permit me to suggest that your science needs a thoughtful 
revision and important amendments to secure its acceptance 
by scholarly minds. Should you be pleased to enter upon 
the work of revision, in the true spirit of philosophical in- 
quiry, you may find occasion to extend your researches into 
a realm you have not yet explored. It is the self-love which 
is satisfied with its present attainments that vainly strives to 
fix limits to scientific investigation and discovery. The rising 
tide of independent thought and universal progress will sweep 
away all such arbitrary barriers, and with them those scientific 
pigmies whose low ambition would fix the final limit of all 
possible achievement within the sphere of our mundane life 
and sensorial perceptions. 

In the true spirit of freedom and universal Progress, and in 
the hope that the boundaries of Science will soon be so far 
enlarged as to embrace our formulated knowledge of spiritual 
things, I am, my dear sir, 

Yours truly, 

S. B. Brittan. 



Belvidere, Warren Co., N. J., 



July 28 



r.J., > 

, 1880. ) 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM DEFENDED. 

IS THE ADVANCE GOING BACKWARD ? 

FROM THE HULMEVILLE (PA.) DELAWARE VALLEY ADVANCE, AUG. 19, l88l. 

" Little is the wisdom, when the flight 
So runs against all reason." — Shak. 

The War on Religious Freedom — Hulmeville proposes Limits— Striking at the Pro- 
testant Reformation — Ignoring the Declaration of Independence — Science opposed 
to Religious Despotism — The Throne and the Tribune — Case of William Twin- 
ing — Derangement and Death from Disease — From the University to Bedlam — 
How too much Love kills People — Shall we stop Loving ? — Religious Lunatics — 
Shall we turn Infidel ?— Neshaminy Falls Mass-Meeting— Christians die suddenly 
— Shall we suppress the Christian Religion ? — Black Sheep in the Fold — Bishop 
Onderdonk and the Episcopacy — Infallible Signs of Dissolution — Where Care- 
lessness is Crime. 

To the Editor of the Advance : 

SIR : Some one has sent me your paper of the fifth in- 
stant, containing your double-leaded editorial leader on 
" Spiritualism and its Influence." In this article you appeal 
to the community to "join together and devise means by 
which its further development and growth may be prevented." 
You appear to have arrived at no final conclusion as to the de- 
gree of religious liberty which may be tolerated with safety to 
society ; but, in respect to the exercise and enjoyment of this 
freedom by Spiritualists, you would impose some arbitrary re- 
straints. No other conclusion is warranted by the terms of 
the following extract from your editorial : 

" It is a very difficult matter for private opinion to decide how far a 

112 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM DEFENDED. II3 

license may be given to advocacy and teaching of things which bring ruin 
and death in their train. That there must be a limit somewhere every one 
will admit. But to set bounds to the limitation is the matter which must 
yet be decided ; and decided it will be, etc." 

Let me respectfully remind you that when you undertake to 
stifle free thought on moral and religious questions, and to 
subvert the right of private judgment, you gravely propose to 
strike at the fundamental principles of the Protestant Refor- 
mation, at the Declaration of American Independence, and the 
inalienable rights of man. Men of great ability, large oppor- 
tunities and commanding influence shrink from the responsi- 
bility of such a contract. The Nineteenth Century is too far 
advanced, the light of science is too widely diffused, and the 
people are too much in love with our free institutions to war- 
rant the expectation of success in such an experiment. A re- 
ligious despotism has no chance in republican America. De- 
mocracy irreverently takes the Pope's bull by the horns and 
leads him captive into the wilderness. We have no more re- 
spect for the crozier and miter than for crowns and scepters. 
We cut down the throne and whittle it into a tribune for the 
use of our representatives, or, what may be better still, a free 
platform for the people. Inspired by the love of Justice and 
Liberty, we break all the symbols of arbitrary power and scat- 
ter the fragments to the winds. 

The pretext for the publication of your article is found in the 
case of the unfortunate William Twining. I have no knowl- 
edge of this case except what I derive from your report, and 
I certainly have no disposition to question the general correct- 
ness of your statement. The facts, as made public in your 
paper, plainly show that Mr. Twining was a victim of some 



114 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

fatal disease which was accompanied, from its incipiency, by 
cerebral derangement, and followed by ungovernable delirium 
and sudden dissolution. In several different forms of vital 
derangement the attack is often accompanied by intense cere- 
bration, and delirium is a frequent concomitant of acute dis- 
eases. In such cases it is quite natural for the patient to rave 
about the subject that last occupied the mind. This fact 
furnishes no evidence that the subject of thought had any- 
thing whatever to do in causing the patient's illness. That 
may have wholly depended upo?i physical causes, as every well 
informed and candid physician will readily admit. That Mr. 
Twining's Spiritualism was not the real cause of his disease 
and death, is rendered more than probable from your own 
statement of the facts. When people become deranged from 
constantly dwelling upon some all-engrossing subject they do 
not, as a rule, expire suddenly. Indeed, insane people are 
scarcely more likely to die prematurely than others. The 
asylums have scores of inmates who have been there for many 
years, and these poor unfortunates often live to be old. On 
the contrary, it appears from your statement of the facts in 
the particular case of Mr. Twining, that only three days inter- 
vened between the first symptoms of mental derangement and the 
death of the patient. 

But, if it should be made to appear that Spiritualism sus- 
tained some doubtful relation to the loss of this man's mental 
equilibrium, his case would only furnish another illustration 
of the fact, that a too concentrated and protracted applica- 
tion of the mind to any one subject is liable to derange the 
mental functions. Thousands of imperfectly balanced people 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM DEFENDED. I I 5 

have lost their mental equipoise in this way, but very few of 
them, however, were Spiritualists. In such cases the mind 
is deranged, not because there is necessarily anything in the 
subject of its meditations to disturb the harmonic action of 
the faculties, but for the obvious reason that this intense and 
prolonged strain upon the mind is forever incompatible with 
the laws of physical and mental harmony. 

I have known more than one merchant who went from his 
counting-room to the lunatic asylum. The incidental cause 
of the mental derangement was, too constant application to 
business, and the mercenary spirit that would not employ a 
book-keeper. But would you put an embargo on commerce, 
and have the store-houses of other men shut up on that ac- 
count ? Students, with unbalanced brains and feeble minds, 
have been sent from the University to Bedlam, but the faculty 
did not resign ; many others went to the same institution — I 
mean to the University — and no one ever suspected that a 
proper education was a dangerous thing. 

The present writer was well acquainted with a man in Mas- 
sachusetts — the foremost farmer in all the region — whose real 
estate and personal property made him the wealthiest man in 
the township to which he belonged. So strong was this man's 
love of mammon that it produced a morbid apprehension that 
he was about to lose his large possessions. This false con- 
ception gained strength until it preyed upon him day and 
night. Fearing that he might, after his almost life-long labor, 
end his days in the almshouse, he terminated his unhappy 
life by hanging himself on his own broad domain. It was 
with a cheerful submission to " the mysterious ways of Provi- 



Il6 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

dence," that the heirs of that man took possession of their 
own lawful inheritance ; at the same time the neighboring 
farmers never for a moment suspected that there was any 
natural relation of cause and effect between agricultural pur- 
suits and suicide. 

Love has unmoored the minds of multitudes and left them 
to drift over the sea of life in darkness and despair. Among 
the most hopeless wrecks of our poor humanity are many who 
have " loved, not wisely," but with a fatal intensity. And 
still every normally constituted young man is sure to find his 
sweetheart, and every blushing maiden accepts her lover. No 
one proposes to disregard the divine injunction to " love one 
another " because the vital fire sometimes consumes the altar 
on which the flame is kindled. 

It is also true that the lunatic asylums contain many per- 
sons whose mournful record, as will appear from the books 
kept by those institutions, is, that they became insane from 
mental and nervous excitement occasioned by their religious 
experience. The history of revivals is illustrated by hundreds 
of such melancholy examples. Only the other day a woman 
who was a member of the congregation at the Brooklyn Tab- 
ernacle, Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage, pastor, is said to have 
lost her reason from the force of a solemn conviction and the 
intensity of her religious emotions. Will the Editor of the 
Advance tell us who is to be held accountable for this case, 
and where is the graceless iconoclast, who, on such a poor 
pretext, is ready to madly rush into Atheism, and sacrile- 
giously pull down the temples consecrated to the Christian 
Religion over the devoted heads of the worshipers ? 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM DEFENDED. WJ 

In a local paragraph you state the fact, on the authority of 
the New York Herald, that the " crowd in attendance at the 
Spiritualist Camp, on Sunday, the first instant, at Neshaminy 
Falls, numbered over ten thousand persons." Yet in your at- 
tempt to illustrate the influence of Spiritualism you select the 
one unfortunate individual whose recent illness and sudden 
death furnished the occasion for your appeal to the public. 
Mr. Twining is said to have died a Spiritualist. Be it so ; 
but that fact does not explain the cause of his death. Chris- 
tians also die — sometimes in a state of the wildest delirium ; 
but no discreet journalist appeals to the public to suppress 
the religion of the Cross. From a solitary example of a man 
who, probably, died from inflammation of the brain, you jump 
to the conclusion that the influence of Spiritualism is of so 
dangerous a nature that something must be done to suppress 
this pernicious heresy. Your offense, Sir, consists of a propo- 
sition to engage — with others who may be like-minded — in a 
conspiracy to deprive a large class of American citizens of 
their rights. On this grave subject you converse as coolly, 
and with as little apparent regard to the world's faith and 
philosophy, and the constitutional rights of millions, as a city 
Alderman would exhibit in discussing the propriety of a mu- 
nicipal ordinance for muzzling dogs ! Why not undertake to 
suppress the Christian Religion because church members 
sometimes have cerebrospinal meningitis j or, otherwise, be- 
cause all Christians are liable to die — some quite suddenly 
and others from wasting disease — die holding on at the last 
to the expressive symbol of their faith ? 

Now, my dear Sir, may I be permitted to inquire why you 



Il8 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

a 

select William Twining's case as the one and only illustrative 
example of the influence of Spiritualism ? Have you forgotten 
the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety -nine other people who 
attended the meeting at the Spiritualists Camp on the same day, 
not one of whom — as far as the writer is informed — was either 
sick or has exhibited any symptoms of mental derangement? What 
sort of logic is that which draws a general and most sweeping 
conclusion from a solitary exceptional case in ten thousand? If 
you should discover a dwarf in Hulmeville, only thirty inches 
high, would you straightway seize upon him as the only proper 
illustration of the average stature of the citizens of Bucks 
County ? Of course you would not ; and yet in your vain 
attempt to determine the character and influence of Spiritual- 
ism your assumption seems to the rational mind no less illogi- 
cal and absurd. 

But this lame logic and manifest injustice to Spiritualists 
does not terminate here. The moral sense and philosophy of 
some opposers is as defective as their logic. The enemies of 
the great Truth, which has already filled the world with its 
presence, are also accustomed to search diligently for a pro- 
fane and reckless brother in the faith, or some morally slip- 
shod sister ; and when they have found one, they make haste 
to determine the moral character of the whole Spiritual 
Brotherhood, by one such individual example. If one finds a 
horse thief in town, is he to be taken as an infallible index to 
the moral status of the whole community ? The Episcopal 
Church is believed to be made up of very respectable people. 
Of course, we may reasonably look for occasional exceptions 
to all general rules ; but one black sheep does not determine 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM DEFENDED. I 1 9 

the complexion of the whole flock. When it became neces- 
sary — some years ago — to depose Bishop Onderdonk for im- 
moral conduct, no faithful disciple once thought of relinquish- 
ing his or her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or deemed it 
necessary to inquire into the moral character and influence of 
the Episcopacy. 

You seem to be shocked at the conduct of the Spiritualists 
in having the body of Mr. Twining removed from the ice, with 
a view of determining beyond a doubt whether his spirit had, 
or had not, finally departed. This was a very proper thing to 
do under the circumstances ; and the public authorities, every- 
where, should forbid the burial of any and of all persons who die 
suddenly until there are signs of decomposition which cannot be 
mistaken. For the same reason the remains in such cases 
should never be subjected to a very low or freezing tempera- 
ture. Enlightened Spiritualists have some knowledge of the 
states resembling death, and it is natural that they should ex- 
ercise more than ordinary caution. They are better informed 
on this subject than any other large class of our citizens. They 
know that the sudden interruption of sensation and voluntary 
motion is no certain indication of death ; and that a state of 
suspended animation for several days has been followed — in 
many well authenticated examples — by complete restoration of 
all vital and voluntary powers. With this positive knowledge 
to awaken caution against premature burials, and *o encour- 
age hope in the possibility of a restoration, carelessness would 
be crime. 

When will the press discontinue its passionate appeals to 
the prejudices of the ignorant, and calmly address the un- 



120 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

derstanding of the more enlightened classes ? This time- 
serving policy, which floats every great public question on 
the tide of popular impulses libels the truth, and is a dis- 
grace to the civilization of the age. Let the old Error die 
and be buried out of sight, and let the new Truth stand un- 
disguised in the unclouded sunshine and majesty of its own 
merits. It is only in this way that we may rationally expect 
to advance the real interests of the human race ; and, believe 
me, Sir, sincere devotion to Humanity is the true service of 
God. 

Trusting that you will permit me to address your readers, 
in behalf of a people numbering many millions in all civilized 
countries, whose independent thought and liberty of speech 
you gravely propose to abridge, I am, my dear Sir, 

Yours respectfully, 



S. B. Brittan. 



Belvidere Seminary, 
Warren County, N. ~$.,Aug. 12, 1880. 



TRUTH AGAINST ITS ENEMIES. 

ANSWER TO THE AUTHOR OF A SPIRITUALISTIC TRAGEDY. 

WRITTEN FOR THE PHILADELPHIA SUNDAY PRESS AND MIRROR.* 

" Our castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn." — Shakespeare. 

Misrepresentations of the Press— Mr. Twining's Case Again— Time-Serving Patrons 
of Error— Vulgar Ignorance and Prejudice— Opposition to New Ideas of Religion 
—Wise Sayings of a Spiritual Reformer— Death by Disease no Tragedy— As- 
sumed Responsibility of J. W. Colville— The Patriarch's Ladder— Insanity and 
Orthodoxy— The Lunatic Demands a Vicarious Sacrifice— A real Tragedy in the 
Freeman Family— Critic's Opposition to Dancing— Examples from Sacred His- 
tory — David Beats the Scotch in his Lively Reel— He Selects Another Man's 
Partner— Blunders in the Figure and Breaks one of the Commandments — Cus- 
toms of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans— Solomon Sanctions 
Dancing— Celebrating the Prodigal Son's Return— Shallow Views of the Press 
and Mirror — This Critic Rivals the Teutonic Nursery Legends — A Christian 
Strives with "Faithful Abraham" — He Wins the Bloody Championship — In- 
famous Appeal to the Authorities— Editor of the Press and Mirror Disloyal to the 
Constitution. 

To the Editor of the Press and Mirror : 

I FIND a sensational article — credited to your paper and 
bearing the inappropriate title of " A Spiritualistic Trag- 
edy " — floating through the channels of the press. It pur- 
ports to be a narration of the facts in the case of the late 
William Twining — alleged to have been a believer in Spirit- 
ualism — who recently died at the Norristown Insane Asylum. 



* This letter was sent to the Sunday Press and Mirror of Philadel- 
phia, in September, 1880, but it did not appear in that paper. The pro- 
prietors claimed that the manuscript never reached its destination, and we 
cannot dispute the statement. It is here made public for the first time. 
6 121 



122 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

It is represented that Mr. Twining " began to show signs of 
delirium " on the evening of July 27th, and that on the morn- 
ing of the 30th, less than three days thereafter, he expired. 
This article is a mischievous attempt to excite public preju- 
dice against Spiritualism and a very numerous class of our 
citizens, and it is therefore calculated to generate and pro- 
mote an unhealthy popular feeling and sentiment. In be- 
half of the very numerous people whose general character 
and principles are therein misrepresented and aspersed, I 
respectfully ask to be heard, and will occupy no more space 
in your columns than the case seems to require. 

The fact that Mr. Twining's death occurred in less than 
three days after he first exhibited signs of mental derange- 
ment, certainly affords strong presumptive evidence that he 
died of some disease of the brain, which may have sustained 
no relation whatever to his belief in Spiritualism. Cerebrospi- 
nal meningitis and other diseases, accompanied by irregular ce- 
rebration, frenzy, and madness are not confined to Spiritualists. 
The same forms of organic derangement occur in the experi- 
ence of Pagans, Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and Infidels; 
and no sane man who is not a bigot ever thinks of referring 
the cases to the peculiar religious or philosophical beliefs of 
such people. And then it is to be observed, that sudden deaths 
do not result from lunacy. A man may become a hopeless lu- 
natic and not die for a quarter of a century, as the records of 
the asylums all over the world abundantly prove. No ra- 
tional view or scientific diagnosis of the present case would be 
likely to attribute Mr. Twining's death to his acceptance of 
the facts and philosophy of Spiritualism. Had he either 



TRUTH AGAINST ITS ENEMIES. 



123 



died in communion with the Catholic Church, in full belief 
of the Thirty-nine Articles, or lost his balance of mind on 
the cardinal points of Calvinism, no one would have attrib- 
uted his death to the influence of his faith. But he is said to 
have been a Spiritualist, and hence several impulsive scrib- 
blers rush into print with their railing accusations against the 
doctrine and the whole body of believers.* 

Many people seem to imagine that they are serving the 
Lord by misrepresenting such of his children as entertain 
unpopular views on religious subjects. It is no part of their 
business to expose the pious frauds which flourish under the 
shadow of the Church, since powerful religious organizations, 
great wealth, and eminent learning have rendered these fash- 
ionable. What if the new views embrace an ever-living Gos- 
pel, which comes " in demonstration of the spirit " and with 
power to settle, and on a scientific basis, the great questions 
of our immortality and the endless progress of the soul ? All 
this is insufficient to command the attention and respect of 
some men. The truth is spurned and trodden under foot as 
an unclean thing ; and its inspired ministers may be despised, 
traduced and buffeted with impunity. On this subject an 
illustrious Spiritual Reformer, whom the Christian world long 
since deified, left his eloquent testimony as follows : " Give 
not that which is holy unto the dogs ; neither cast ye your 
pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, 
and turn again and rend you." (Matt. vii. 6.) 



* We have already answered a similar though less malignant article, 
which appeared in the editorial columns of the Delaware Valley Advance 
— published at Hulmeville — of the date of the 5th of August, 1880. 



124 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

The article credited to your journal misrepresents the case 
from the title to the last line. To characterize the death of 
Mr. Twining as " A Spiritualistic Tragedy," is to falsify the 
facts. Webster defines the word tragedy, as used in this con- 
nection, to be " any event in which human lives are lost by human 
violence, more especially by unauthorized violence" Mr. Twining 
did not die in this manner. The mournful event was not, in 
any sense, the result of violence at the hands of any man. I 
speak as a physician when I say that the facts warrant the 
conclusion that Mr. Twining died of a physical disease. The 
writer in the Press and Mirror gives a loose rein to his imag- 
ination, when he assumes that an unpleasant responsibility 
attaches to Mr. Colville and others who are accused of as- 
suring the unfortunate Mr. Twining that " he was Christ, and 
one day, not far distant, he would become the leader of all 
Spiritualists." That either Mr. Colville, or any other real 
medium, or any rational believer in Spiritualism, ever gave 
such assurance to any man, will not be credited for a mo- 
ment by any person who has any just claims to ordinary 
candor and intelligence. Here we again encounter the same 
" lying spirit " of exaggeration, which assumes a case of in- 
flammation of the brain to be a " tragedy," and calls the ten or 
fifteen thousand respectable people assembled at Neshaminy 
Falls, "a tramping band /" 

The bigoted author of this article would never have char- 
acterized the attendants upon a Methodist camp-meeting in 
this manner. He knows that it will not pay to dip his pen 
in gall to abuse a large denomination of Christians ; and he 
will perhaps live long enough to learn that the Spiritualists 



TRUTH AGAINST ITS ENEMIES. 12$ 

outnumber any Protestant sect in Christendom. The time 
may not be far off when this unnumbered people will possess 
the moral power to command respect at the hands of the un- 
scrupulous scribes who now so grossly misrepresent their real 
character, and the essential principles of that divine philoso- 
phy, which not only covers all our present relations and in- 
terests, but is 

" the Patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven, 

And bright with beckoning Angels. " 

It was only recently that Mr. Twining became interested 
in Spiritualism, and his mind seems to have been still under 
the dominating influence of the dogmas of the Church. This 
plainly appears from the following statement which I extract 
from your correspondent's letter : 

" He made known to his family his belief that he was Christ himself. 
As this spell took a more firm hold of the unfortunate man, he said : ' I 
must shed somebody's blood in order to prepare myself for the work I 
have to perform.' He made an attempt on his brother, and came near 
choking him before his hold could be broken." 

Here it is evident that the disordered mind of the patient 
was chiefly influenced by the " Evangelical doctrine" of the 
"vicarious atonement," which, I may venture to say, is not 
believed by one Spiritualist in a thousand. This -popular the- 
ological notion of the " vicarious sacrifice " of an innocent 
person, being uppermost in his mind, governed his determina- 
tion, and hence he conceived the shedding of blood to be an 
indispensable preliminary to the accomplishment of his mis- 
sion. Why then may we not ascribe his violent conduct and 
destructive propensity to the fatal influence of the cardinal 



126 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

doctrine of the popular theology ? Had he actually killed 
his brother, it would not have been the first instance of a 
Christian lunatic offering a bloody sacrifice on the altar of his 
religion. There have been many such examples ; * but faith 
in the doctrine is still insisted on as essential to the salvation 
of the soul. 

The writer in your paper further characterizes the daily 
exercises at the Neshaminy Grove meeting as " these objection- 
able goings on," and then concludes his vituperative epistle 
in the following paragraph : 

1 ' The inconsistency of the delusion is the fact that the entire proceed- 
ings are a mockery. After the preaching is over, dancing is indulged in 
twice a week in one of the pavilions erected for the purpose. All their 
quotations are taken from the Bible, and during the delivery of a sermon 
they have flowers arranged in the trees, held in place by wires or invisi- 
ble strings, which are represented to the crowd as having fallen from 
heaven. Of course this is all trickery, and should be easily seen through. 
As these people are doing much evil, it behooves the authorities to dis- 
band them at once, otherwise more innocent farmers may die in a strait 
jacket." 

This daily sermonizing and the " dancing twice a week " — 

always after the preaching is over — is, we may suppose, what 

constitutes the " inconsistency " and mockery of " the delu- 



* The public mind has scarcely recovered from the terrible shock occa- 
sioned by that most revolting example in the Freeman family, of Massa- 
chusetts. It was not suspected that any " spiritualistic " idea or teaching 
led to this real tragedy. No, it was the influence of the dogmatic theol- 
ogy of the so-called Evangelical Religion. Freeman had a supreme re- 
spect for the " infallible authority " of the Bible, and believed in an ortho- 
dox creed. To show his reverence for that authority, and to make his 
peace with the God of Abraham, he determined to emulate the Patriarch, 
who is said to have offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord ; and so 
the crazy father actually slaughtered his own little daughter with the con- 
sent and approbation of the mother who bore her. 



TRUTH AGAINST ITS ENEMIES. 



127 



sion." If this is really an incongruous association of ideas 
and exercises, it must be admitted that the dancing part of 
the performance, at least, has been indulged in for a very long 
time. It has an ancient history, inwrought with the religious 
ideas and festivals of all the earlier nations. In the one hun- 
dred and forty-ninth Psalm the pious Hebrew minstrel calls 
upon " the congregation of the saints " to " sing unto the Lord 
a new song," and he adds, " Let them praise his name in the 
dance" It is also related in sacred history that when the ark 
of the covenant was brought into the holy city, " David danced 
before the Lord with all his might." (II Sam. vi. 14.) It is 
true that David made some mistakes in balancing to another 
man's partner, crossing over and going " down the outside " 
of the Ten Commandments ! But the Lord — unlike your hy- 
percritical correspondent — does not appear to have taken seri- 
ous offense at David's style of dancing. Indeed, this formed an 
important part in the religious rites and worship of both the 
Hebrews and Egyptians. The polished Greeks followed their 
example, refining the festal and religious ceremonies of the 
people, and the Romans profited by imitating the Greeks. 
That dancing was included in the religious exercises of the 
Christian Church, for more than one thousand years, is a fact 
proved by authentic history, while it is not so evident that 
the modern Church has improved upon the customs of the 
fathers. I copy the following passage from a learned author : 

"If we may believe Scaliger, the early bishops of the Church were 
styled prcesules, because (as the word literally implies) they led off the 
dance at their solemn festivals ; and this practice continued in the 
Church till the twelfth century."— (W. T. Brande, F. R. S. L.) 

Where, then, is the " inconsistency " in dancing as well as 



128 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

preaching, at the proper time, and " in one of the pavilions 
erected for the purpose ? " " A mockery " of religion to 
dance ! Why, this secular scribe makes war on the Bible, 
and he complains that Spiritualists quote altogether too much 
Scripture ! Is the man who says this wiser than the wisest ? O 
dishonored shade of Solomon ! Do we not read in thy divinely 
inspired word that for " everything there is a season, and a time 
to every purpose under the heavens," including <k a time to 
laugh, . . . and a time to dance ? " (Ecclesiastes hi. 3-8.) 

When the prodigal returned to his father's house his envious 
and ill-tempered brother was at work in the field, and was not 
consulted as to the propriety of killing " the fatted calf." This 
excited his displeasure, " and as he came and drew nigh to the 
house he heard music and dancing." That was too much for 
his equanimity, and — like the petulant scribe in the Press and 
Mirror — he was angry and would not go in. (Luke chap, xv.) 
Is there not something about your correspondent to remind 
one of the irascible brother of the Prodigal Son ? There may 
be no resemblance in either form, feature, or complexion. 
The fancied likeness may be confined to what the French call 
the esprit, which is so powerful alike in determining both the 
momentary expression and the general demeanor. Instead of 
going in to the great Spiritual entertainment, where he might 
possibly find something to live on, and a remedy for his lean- 
ness and meanness of soul, he is angry and stays outside to 
nurse his displeasure. The thousands at the feast are rejoic- 
ing in the great liberty and the new life of a present inspira- 
tion, while he directs the finger of scorn at the guests and de- 
fames the faithful disciples of the truth. 



TRUTH AGAINST ITS ENEMIES. 1 29 

The man who is credulous enough to believe that the shal- 
low devices described by the writer in the Mirror — the " flow- 
ers arranged in the trees," and the wire-pulling to produce a 
shower of floral offerings "from heaven "—were practiced 
from day to day and for weeks, before thousands of intelligent 
ladies and gentlemen, all of whom were either deceived or de- 
ceiving, must be the very man to supplement the Teutonic 
legends of " Jack and the Beanstalk," and that other adven- 
turous John of giant-killing fame — all by the amazing power 
of his own fertile imagination. To such a juvenile mind a 
nursery tale of fiction may have more weight than the demon- 
strative facts of Spiritualism. 

The author of " A Spiritualistic Tragedy " closes his work 
by an appeal to the local authorities to disband the Spiritual- 
ists at once, and for no other reason but that a man, not half 
converted to their views, died suddenly from some physical 
disease which affected his brain and deranged his mind. 
Where was this writer of fiction when poor Freeman — striving 
with Abraham for the championship in the bloody demonstra- 
tion of his faith — butchered his innocent little child ? We did 
not hear from him at that time. True, it was a case to excite 
the compassion of the hardest heart. He may have been 
shocked, for aught we know, by the terrible tragedy ; but as 
the perpetrator was known to be orthodox in his faith, your 
correspondent was silent and made no sign. Nor did any 
other lunatic propose to "disband" the Christian Church! 
Now, however, he calls aloud for prompt and decisive action 
on the part of the public " authorities." He would have a 
people numbering millions deprived of their religious liberty ! 
6* 



130 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

He insists that Spiritualists and their public proceedings — 
described in his elegant phraseology as " these objectionable 
goings on " — should be squelched immediately and forever ; 
" otherwise more innocent farmers may die in a strait jacket." 
But the authorities did not respond to this importunate ap- 
peal. They have learned, no doubt — what this man has evi- 
dently failed to discover — that they live in a free country and 
under a government that tolerates independent thought and 
all systems of religion. 

We close by congratulating the man who libels us, on his 
being privileged to enjoy the priceless blessings of our liberal 
institutions. It is fortunate indeed for those who are thus 
disloyal to the Constitution and laws of their country, that 
they live under a government which is so much better than 
they really deserve. 

" Who shames a scribbler, breaks a cobweb through." 

S. B. Brittan. 



Belvidere Seminary, 

Warren County, N. J., Sept. 25, 1880 



i 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS CRITICS. 

AN UNJUST CRITICISM OF MR. HENRY KIDDLE REVIEWED. 

FROM THE GATE CITY, KEOKUK, IOWA.* 

The late Superintendent of Schools— A Critic's offensive Misrepresentations— Mr. 
Kiddle was never Crazy— He was not Removed— A most efficient Man Resigned 
an Important Place— The Question of Scholarship— An Editor's Distress about 
Syntax — The Untitled Journalist versus a Master of Arts— Men who are Paid to 
write bad English — The Josh Billings School— How Charity is illustrated at Gate 
City. 

To the Editor of The Gate City : 

SIR : Having accepted the appointment — in the special 
interest of liberal principles — of Corresponding Editor- 
at-large, I take the liberty, in the discharge of the duties as- 
signed to me, to address you in reference to the following 
paragraph, which appeared in the editorial department of 
your paper, under date of the 9th instant : 

" Mr. Henry Kiddle was Superintendent of the public schools of New 
York. He became a crazy Spiritualist last year and lost his position, and 
is very angry about it. He presided at a meeting of Spiritualists last 
week, and made a furious speech of abuse of everybody and all papers and 
preachers that won't see heaven's truth in the twaddle and bad grammar 
driveled upon a suffering world by professed spirits at seances. Mr. Kid- 
dle really needs to be judged very charitably. There is something the 
matter with his head and he doesn't know it." 



* This letter was published in The Gate City, Jan. 28, 1880. In the 
order of time it would have found its proper place among the earlier con- 
tents of this volume, had it not been overlooked. The particular place 
assigned to it is, however, a matter of little consequence. 

131 



132 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

I do not allow myself to presume for a moment that you 
have any wish to use your columns to the injury of any indi- 
vidual, much less that you would intentionally mislead the 
public mind. In the absence of any conclusive evidence to 
the contrary, I am bound to presume that you intend to con- 
duct your paper with a view to the dissemination of correct 
intelligence on all subjects that come within the range of 
modern journalism. Trusting that you would wish to be cor- 
rectly informed on all matters that fall within the scope of 
your daily commentary on current ideas and passing events, 
I take the liberty to forward this communication for publica- 
tion in your columns. 

Permit me to say that you were never more mistaken in 
your life than in what you are pleased to affirm in respect to 
the late Superintendent of the public schools of this City. Of 
this fact it would be no difficult task to satisfy any man who 
— with a mind open to conviction — has the capacity to reason 
and the discrimination to measure the force of evidence. In 
a further and more analytical reference to your paragraph I 
remark : 

1. Mr. Henry Kiddle did not become crazy last year. His 
faculties never have been thus deranged at any time. That 
he was not adjudged by our Board of Education to be crazy, 
is evident from the fact that he continued to discharge all 
the duties of his most important position to the last hour of 
his term of office. No fair minded person here pretends to 
dispute the fact that he exhibited the same mental and moral 
equipoise to the last ; nor was he less efficient in the consci- 
entious discharge of every duty to his subordinates and every 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS CRITICS. 1 33 

obligation to the public. It may fairly be questioned if any 
man ever resigned an important office in this City who car- 
ried with him into his retirement a larger measure of public 
respect and confidence ; nor can we point to one who was 
more beloved by the large, intelligent, and influential class of 
people who were at once subject to his authority and gov- 
erned by his wisdom. 

2. Mr. Kiddle did not "lose his position," and was never 
" very angry about it." On the contrary, in the most dispas- 
sionate manner he resigned his office, and he has never, to 
this day, exhibited the slightest ill feeling toward those who 
favored his removal, so far as the facts are known to the 
present writer. There was no little discussion about request- 
ing Mr. Kiddle to recall his resignation, in the course of 
which a number of the more influential members of the Board 
of Education emphatically expressed their undiminished con- 
fidence in his unequaled ability for the place, and his un- 
wavering fidelity to the sacred trust reposed in him. The 
opinion found expression long ago, and is still widely enter- 
tained, that if the late Superintendent had not resigned he 
would have been in the same office to-day. 

3. Mr. Kiddle never made " a furious speech ; " on the 
contrary, he always speaks with calmness and deliberation. 
He did not "abuse everybody ; " more especially editors and 
preachers who " won't see heaven's truth in twaddle and bad 
grammar." Mr. Kiddle's grammar will compare favorably 
with that of the most distinguished of his assailants. He has 
received the degree of Master of Arts, and well understands 
the principles which determine the relations of thought to 



134 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

speech, or the art of philological expression. We can assure 
you that he is far more familiar with the rules of syntax, or 
the principles of grammatical construction, than the average 
journalist. We cannot discount the just claims of this gen- 
tleman to scholarship, because he may choose — like a faithful 
amanuensis — to correctly report the language of parties who 
may be pleased to converse with him on some important sub- 
ject. Our most popular authors and men of acknowledged 
genius do this ; and what is more, they put ungrammatical 
and frequently very bad language into the mouths of fictitious 
characters of their own creation. We have some authors who 
have reduced the business of writing bad English to a system. 
Josh Billings, for example, actually receives not less than two 
or three thousand dollars per annum for a weekly contribu- 
tion of half a column to a single New York journal. And 
what have the hypocritical opposers of Spiritualism to say 
about it ? Not a word to justify the inference that they re- 
gard this business as at all reprehensible. They seem to ap- 
prove of "twaddle and bad grammar," when these things 
command a high price. Indeed, some newspaper men value 
these baser elements in our journalistic literature so highly 
that they are quite willing to steal them, and the papers far 
and near appropriate what Josh writes without one word of 
objection to his systematic prostitution of the language. 

4. You are pleased to say that " Mr. Kiddle really needs 
to be judged very charitably." But where shall he go to 
obtain such a righteous judgment ? It will hardly do to 
travel toward Keokuk where so many oblique statements to 
his disparagement can be crowded through the Gate City 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS CRITICS. 1 35 

in a single editorial paragraph. Now here are some of the 
more essential characteristics of charity, as defined by a Chris- 
tian Apostle : " Charity suffereth long and is kind ; * * * 
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave 
itself unseemly, * * * is not easily provoked, thinketh 
no evil." Where shall we look for a conspicuous illustration 
of this charity, the exercise of which, in your opinion, is so 
much needed in behalf of our late Superintendent ? When is 
that heavenly guest expected out West ? True, we know of 
nothing in the case of Mr. Kiddle that calls for any special 
exhibition of charity ? No one need rend the white mantle 
the angels let down out of heaven, by any spasmodic attempts 
to cover this new and worthy disciple of a living inspiration 
and an everlasting gospel. If we can but find this mantle 
somewhere under the sun, we know that its ample folds are 
sufficiently broad to encircle all of us — and still, we may 
hope, leave enough to cover the Gate City. 

Yours respectfully, 

S. B. Brittan. 

80 West Eleventh Street, ) 
New York, Jan., iSSo. S 



DEAD LETTER OF DOCTOR GRAVES. 

MAGNETISM, CLAIRVOYANCE, AND DEMONISM. 

FROM THE VAN BUREN (ARK.) PRESS, OCT. 16, 1880. 

Dr. Graves Visits Charles Foster— Dr. Samuel Watson's Lectures— Moving of the 

Waters — Ithuriel and Zephon— Commission from Gabriel— Satan in Mischief 

Arrested by the Heavenly Detectives— Resurrection at Memphis— Mistakes of 
the Spirits— Mr. Greeley's Chirography— Heterodox Spirits— What Dr. Graves 
does not Know— Mesmer at the Court of Louis XVI.— Professorship of Animal 
Magnetism at Berlin— Cuvier, Laplace, Humboldt, Coleridge, Dugald Stewart, 
and Galvani— Relations of Vital Magnetism to Psycho-physiology — Power of 
Will over Magnetic Sensitives — Limitations of the Wonder-working Agent- 
Clairvoyance Explained — Invisible Psychological Operators — Dr. Graves on 
" Demonism "— " Hark, from the Tombs ! "— Demonology of the Ancient Greeks 
and Modern Spiritualists. 

" How commentators each dark passage shun, 
And hold their farthing candle to the sun." 

— Young. 

Editor of the Van Buren Press : 

I AM indebted to one of your citizens for a copy of your 
journal, containing a letter from Rev. Dr. G. R. Graves, 
descriptive of the method and results of his investigation at a 
single seance with Mr. Foster, the well-known test-medium. 
This occurred long ago, and the letter was originally pub- 
lished in the Memphis Appeal, in January, 1873. The Press 
compliments Mr. Graves, by saying that he is "one of the 
most distinguished divines in the United States." 

It appears that our venerable brother, Rev. Dr. Samuel 
Watson, has been giving lectures in the Southwest on the one 

136 



DEAD LETTER OF DOCTOR GRAVES. 1 37 

universal gospel of Spiritualism, and that his demonstrative 
facts and cogent reasonings have stirred the elements of the 
effete theologies, and deeply moved the souls of their defend- 
ers. It seemed to be necessary that some one should meet 
the Southern champion of the New Dispensation, who had so 
deeply wounded the adversary. The presence of one so thor- 
oughly imbued with the spirit of truth as Dr. Watson is known 
to be, could scarcely fail to discover the enemy, and leave 
him naked for the world's observation. According to Mil- 
ton, Ithuriel and Zephon, two bright and heavenly detectives, 
were sent — under a celestial commission from Gabriel — to 
search all Paradise for Satan (the adversary), and they found 
him ; precisely how and where is thus described in the lan- 
guage of the poet : 

" Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
Assaying by his devilish art to reach 
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge 
Illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams ; 
Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint 
The animal spirits. . . . 
Him thus intent, Ithuriel with his spear 
Touched lightly, for no falsehood can endure 
Touch of celestial temper, but returns. 
Of force, to its own likeness." 

Some one was wanted to break the spear of Ithuriel ; but 
there was no valiant spirit incarnate at Van Buren, in Ar- 
kansas, who could give assurance of his ability to resist the 
" touch of celestial-tempered " weapons. And when no one 
was found worthy of Bro. Watson's steel, it came to pass that 
they explored Memphis, and resurrected this dead letter of 
Graves ! This might suffice to dull the weapons of all ordi- 



I38 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

nary warfare, but it is powerless to either blunt that celestial 
spear, or turn the edge of " the sword of the spirit." 

Seriously, while Mr. Graves's letter is no doubt a conscien- 
tious statement of the details of his very limited experience, 
it is mainly devoid of interest. There is nothing offensive in 
its spirit ; and there is nothing in it to shake the confidence of 
the feeblest disciple in a single fact or principle of Spiritualism. 
Indeed, the opposition is so weak and shaky that if it had a 
soul to feel, it would certainly move us to compassion. It is 
proper to observe that Mr. Graves was not satisfied with the 
results of his interview. The spirits made several mistakes in 
respect to matters of fact, names, etc. George Snider claimed 
to be in the Spirit- world an hour after the doctor had dined 
with him. A spirit assuming to be his wife stumbled on her 
middle name ; and it is said that her chirography " looked as 
if it might have been written by Horace Greeley ; " and, he 
adds — by way of explanation — " was written backward and 
bottom upward." The most remarkable thing in this connec- 
tion is, if the spirit's chirography so much resembled Horace 
Greeley's, that he, Dr. Graves, should be able to determine 
whether it was really inverted Or right side up. 

Another grave objection is found in the fact of his dis- 
covery that spirits are not orthodox, but favor — to use his own 
language — " the doctrine of the universal salvation of all." 
This may be slightly tautological ; and we are left to infer 
that if the Spirits will consent to compromise on the universal 
salvation of a very limited number, their doctrine will be more 
acceptable to " this most distinguished divine." If they will 
only join the church, take a slip and pay for it, arid liberally 



DEAD LETTER OF DOCTOR GRAVES. 1 39 

" Deal damnation 'round the land " 

on all whom they judge to be the enemies of God, they will 
soon get a fair hearing before our religious society, and their 
teachings may come to be respected as the precious revela- 
tions of infinite love and heavenly wisdom. 

There is nothing further in Mr. Graves's letter to either ar- 
rest attention or invite comment, except what is embraced in 
his concluding paragraph, which I copy as follows : 

" I wish to say to your readers that this test interview confirmed me in 
the positions I have heretofore presented to the public, that animal mes- 
merism has much to do with Mr. Forster's performances, clairvoyance 
some, and demonism will account for the rest. He performs some unac- 
countable things, I must confess.* The bloody writing on the back of 
his hand is by far the greatest ; but much connected with Spiritualism 
that was deemed miraculous a few years ago is now explained, since mag- 
netism and mesmerism have come to be understood, and so the blood- 
writing may be in years to come. " 

Rev. J. R. Graves, D.D., of the Baptist Church, aspires to 
something like originality when he attempts to treat of " ani- 
mal mesmerism " True, a little more than a century ago, F. 
Antoine Mesmer, of the Medical faculty of Vienna, attracted 
considerable attention to the phenomena of animal or human 
magnetism, which he used as an auxiliary in his practice of 
medicine. Ten years later the French Academy appointed a 
committee to inquire into the subject ; but failing to feel, see, 
taste, smell, measure or weigh the subtle and wonder-working 



* After assuming to account for all the facts by attributing some to 
mesmerism, others to clairvoyance, and the rest (this comprehends all that 
remains) to demonism, he is obliged to " confess" that there are " some 
unaccountable things." To evade the force of these he takes a leap into 
the darkness of conjecture and expects others to follow him. 



140 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

fluid which Mesmer supposed to exist, the committee reported 
that there was no such thing as " Animal Magnetism." But 
the facts continued to multiply and command attention in 
different parts of Europe. Cuvier, Laplace, Humboldt, Cole- 
ridge, Dugald Stewart, and many other distinguished names 
became identified with the new science. In 1831 its claims 
to a place among the accredited sciences were duly acknowl- 
edged in the report of the scientific commission, appointed, 
if I mistake not, in 1825. Skepticism reluctantly gave up the 
ghost. The invisible, pain-destroying agent was at length 
admitted into the hospitals of Paris and London, and a Pro- 
fessorship of Animal Magnetism was established in the Medi- 
cal College of Berlin.* 

But there is no proper reason for giving names of persons 
to the great principles of Nature. I recall but one other 
notable example in which this is done. The electricity gener- 
ated or disengaged by chemical action, is called Galvanism, 
in honor of the Bologna anatomist and physiologist, Galvani. 
But we might as well call electricity in another form, F?-a?ik- 
linism — because the American philosopher experimented in 
the science, and is credited with demonstrating the identity 
of lightning and electricity — as apply the name of the Vienna 
Doctor to the subtle electro-magnetism of animal and human 
bodies. We do not name Gravitation after either Kepler or 



* The discoveries of Mesmer and his dexterous use of the power, gave 
him an enviable position and a commanding influence. He had many 
distinguished pupils in Paris, received large sums for his course of in- 
struction, and was professionally employed by the principal nobles at the 
court of Louis XVI. — See the author's Philosophical Treatise entitled 
Man and his Relations, Chap. II. 



DEAD LETTER OF DOCTOR GRAVES. I4I 

Newton. We never speak of Geology as Lyellism, nor is as- 
tronomy made to bear the name of some Chaldean shepherd, 
an Egyptian priest, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, or any mod- 
ern scientist. For want of a better name, we may call the 
agent referred to by Rev. Dr. Graves, Vital Magnetism, to 
indicate that the subtle principle belongs essentially to life, 
and is peculiar to the forms of animated nature. 

And what does Mr. Graves know about vital, animal, or hu- 
man magnetism ? Evidently very little ; not enough to either 
enable him to give us a proper definition of the words, or to 
characterize the principle, by the use of appropriate terms. 
Now, what are the powers of Vital Magnetism ? Under the 
direction of human intelligence it is capable of producing a 
great variety of physiological and psychological phenomena, 
on and through the bodies and minds of susceptible persons. 
It may exercise supreme control over sensation and voluntary 
motion ; influence all the involuntary functions and processes 
of the living body — by accelerating or retarding molecular, 
chemical, arterial and cerebral action — so as to arrest disease 
and restore the vital equilibrium, when, from any cause, it may 
have been temporarily interrupted. This command of the 
nervous circulation enables the operator to govern the distri- 
bution of the animal fluids ; to excite and subdue all the pas- 
sions of human nature ; and to determine the specific charac- 
ter of the impressions made upon the brain and the mind of 
the subject through the nerves of general and special sensa- 
tion. In many cases the skillful exercise of this power is suf- 
ficient to chain the strongest man ; to greatly intensify and 
wholly suspend sensibility in the subject ; to allay nervous 



142 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

irritability, to remove pain and induce sleep ; to stimulate 
thought, and to inspire dreams and visions ; while, here and 
there, it lifts the veil of our mortality and reveals the invisi- 
ble world to the conscious soul. 

What are the natural and inevitable limitations of this pecu- 
liar power ? On this question all thoughtful observers must 
agree. The first or cardinal fact which arrests the attention 
of every scientific investigator is that the several phases of the 
phenomena are restricted to the forms of human and animal ex- 
istence. The unorganized elements of matter, the forms and 
substances of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms — in short, 
all the objects of the inanimate creation, are beyond the reach 
of this agent. Vital magnetism can not read and spell ; it 
can not teach the ignorant ; it can not rap on a table ; it will 
not move a bowlder ; it rings no bells beyond our reach ; it 
never lifts any ponderable body ; it does not unlock doors, 
either with or without keys ; it is not able to play on musical 
instruments ; it is neither a poet, an orator, nor a metaphysi- 
cian ; it does not draw portraits, and never quotes Scripture. 
Vital Magnetism is dumb, and will not account for the myste- 
rious voices ; Magnetism is destitute of sensibility, and can- 
not be insulted ; Magnetism is blind, and can no more see 
what is in our minds than electricity, hydrogen gas, or com- 
mon air can be expected to exercise this function of sentient 
being. 

Can Clairvoyance perform any of the things embraced in 
the foregoing specification ? I answer, it enables its possessor 
to clearly perceive what is passing in the human mind. Beyond 
this it is utterly powerless to produce any one of the results 



DEAD LETTER OF DOCTOR GRAVES. 1 43 

or effects above specified. The term is compounded of two 
French words, clair, clear, and voyant, to see. The faculty 
being subjective and passive, can exert no possible influence on 
outward objects. It is the gift of spiritual perception — or the 
power of inward sight — by which we clearly discern things 
beyond the range of ordinary vision ; creatures too minute to 
be perceived through these mortal instruments of sight ; and 
the beings who are rendered invisible on account of the ex- 
treme sublimation of the elements which enter into their com- 
position and structure — the forms of the Spirit- World. Of 
course Clairvoyance can no more move an object, or produce 
a sound, than the faculty of natural vision exercised through 
the physical organs. Every child knows that he may gaze all 
day at the natural and artificial objects outside of the school- 
room, and never move one of them a hair's breadth. 

It is true that the human mind, acting through the delicate 
and powerful agency of animal electricity or vital magnetism, 
may produce very remarkable effects on the constitutions of 
men and animals ; but that power is forever restricted to crea- 
tines endowed with sensation and voluntary motio?i. Made po- 
tent as possible by the utmost effort of the human will, it is 
still powerless to influence the inanimate creation. It could 
never bend a blade of grass, stir a single leaf in the forest, 
ripple the waters of a waveless pool, nor check the movement 
of the most delicate chronometer. The psychological phe- 
nomena which depend on the executive power of the mind — 
concentrated on the sensitive subject, and acting through the 
subtle magnetism of the living body — may be produced agree- 
ably to the same psychological laws, by minds in the flesh and 



144 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

in the spirit. Other things being equal, the mind that is no 
longer subject to mortal limitations may be able to produce 
the more remarkable effects, and for the reason that the un- 
fettered spirit may more completely interpenetrate the whole body 
and mind of the subject. 

Here let me observe that whether the operator be visible 
or invisible, the phenomena depend on the same general laws 
of mind and matter, and the effects are by no means dissimi- 
lar, either in their essential nature or their superficial aspects. 
Whether in or out of the body, the human mind is possessed 
of the same faculties, affections and susceptibilities, and the 
effects it is capable of producing on kindred natures in this 
world have, therefore, not only a common origin, but a mut- 
ual likeness. Let it be remembered that wherever we wit- 
ness the illustrations of this power, we have the evidence 
that there exists an inspiring mind somewhere ; and rational 
Spiritualists are not accustomed to refer the phenomena to 
invisible agents, when a visible operator can be discovered. 

Every enlightened Spiritualist knows there are numberless 
examples in which it is not only impossible to find the psy- 
cho-magnetic operator within the sphere of visible existence, 
but the conditions and circumstances are such as to preclude 
the hypothesis of a mundane origin. In all such cases, the 
rational mind has no alternative but to look within the veil for 
the intelligent actors who direct the shifting scenes in the 
divine drama of our mortal and spiritual existence. 

There is nothing remaining of this writer's assumptions but 
the demonology to which he refers all the manifestations which 
are not produced by what he calls " animal mesmerism " and 



DEAD LETTER OF DOCTOR GRAVES. I45 

clairvoyance. We have already illustrated the nature and 
scope of these alleged sources of the phenomena, showing by 
reference to their limitations that they can only by a possibil- 
ity be made to cover a small part of the facts of Spiritualism. 
All that remain are attributed to " demonism." If by demons 
the gentleman has reference to an assumed separate order of 
intelligent beings — neither men nor gods, but devoted to the 
work of infernal mischief — I deny the existence of any such 
beings in' either heaven, earth or hell. If this is the accepted 
hypothesis, the Rev. Dr. Graves cannot decline the onus pro- 
bandi j and we know very well that no evidence can be de- 
rived from either fact, law, or reason to support such an as- 
sumption. 

But if the gentleman accepts the alternative idea or concep' 
tion of the nature of demons, as entertained by the ancient 
Greeks, namely, that they were the spirits of departed human 
beings, and that the word does not express or otherwise indicate 
the i?iherent qualities and moral character of the beings to whom it 
was applied, then there can be no further controversy. This 
is indeed the only view which can be triumphantly defended, 
and it involves a concession to the Spiritualists of the whole 
ground of this controversy. The Greeks believed in both 
celestial and terrestrial demons, or pure and impure souls of 
men, and their continued influence in human affairs ; and the 
Spirits of our time exhibit all degrees of human intelligence 
and moral elevation which we find among men. 

It is commonly assumed by the" clergy that the word demon 
necessarily represents an evil spirit, when every classical 
scholar should know that the sense in which the original word 
7 



I46 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

was used by the Greeks furnishes no warrant for such an as- 
sumption. This appears to be one of the devices of modern 
theologians for upholding the dogmas of the Church. Every 
well educated clergyman knows that the word d&mon was orig- 
inally applied to the saints and heroes who were deified by the 
ancient Greeks. They were spirits of men who were thus 
honored by being elevated to the rank of the gods. The 
apotheosis conferred divine rights on those who were distin- 
guished for superior wisdom, heroic achievement, and the 
eminent virtues which exalt and glorify human life. To such 
an extent were they supposed to exert a beneficent influence 
in advancing the interests of mankind that they were regarded 
as objects of adoration. Homer seems to have viewed them 
as belonging to the divine societies, and Hesiod represents 
their influence as " peaceful and favorable to man." The 
great souls of the golden age were represented as dcemons of 
the most exalted rank. 

In attempting to enlighten the cold skepticism of the relig- 
ious world on the subject of Spiritualism — if I may be per- 
mitted to slightly modify the words of the poet — Mr. Graves 
is about 

" As much at issue with the summer day 
As if he brought his taper out of doors." 

S. B. Brittan. 

Belvidere Seminary, ) 

Warren Co., N. J., Sept. 30, 1880. J 



THE DEATH PENALTY. 

ARGUMENT FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. 

FROM THE DAILY TIMES, HARTFORD, CONN., OCT. 13, 1880. 

The Herald and the Death Penalty — Criminal Code and the Law-making Power— 
The Dangerous Classes— Capital Punishment Unchristian— Is Moses our Law- 
giver ?— Revenge is not Justice— Relations of the Individual to the State— Phi- 
losophy of Democratic Government — Assumed and Dangerous Prerogatives — 
The State has no Right to take Life — Law makes the Public a Cowardly Assassin 
— Logic of the Duello— The Homicide's Defense— Sacredness of Human Life- 
Society's False Plea of Self-preservation — Naked Fallacy Exposed — Same Moral 
Law Applies to the Citizen and the Republic — Solemn Mockery of a Religion of 
Love — Behold the Sacrilegious Incongruities ! — Praying for our Enemies in the 
Insulted Name of Jesus— Growing Hemp and Building Gibbets — The Sacrament 
and the Execution — Grim, Ghastly, and Terrible Spectacle ! 

The Lex Scripta is the collective will of the People. — Brittan. 
To the Editor of the Times : 

FROM an editorial article in the New York Herald, 
under the title of " Balbo and the Governor " — pub- 
lished just after the execution of the former — I am led to 
conclude that the editors of that journal are among the great 
number of humane and thoughtful people who, while they 
feel bound to respect the law as the formulated expression of 
the popular will, do not approve of the Death Penalty. This 
conclusion may be fairly drawn from the following passage : 

"The Herald believes, with thousands of thoughtful people, that a 
criminal can be used to better purpose than is possible after he has been 
strangled with a rope ; but the majority of our law-makers do not, other- 
wise the law allowing sentence of death would be changed." 

Comparing this significant statement with its earlier treat- 

147 



I48 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ment of the same general topic, more especially with the 
views expressed in an article on the " Methods of Capital 
Punishment," in the Herald of July 31, 1874 — which lies be- 
fore me — I am pleased to witness the change which appears 
to have resulted from the additional experience and observa- 
tion of the last six years. This pleasure is augmented by the 
reflection that the Herald is regarded as a model newspaper, 
and generally accepted as a reliable interpreter of the popular 
feeling and thought. The extract contains the suggestion 
that our criminal code does not reflect the most oilightened views 
of human nature and the just prerogatives of the law-making 
power. It is, indeed, quite too general to regard the unequal 
measure of individual responsibility ; while it plainly over- 
rides the solemn obligation of the State to respect the inter- 
ests of all the people — not excepting those unfortunate classes 
whose freedom the law must restrain. These considerations 
do not appear to exert any high moral influence over the 
minds of legislators. Our law-makers are mostly taken from 
the legal profession and the ranks of successful politicians ; 
and we may well question whether they fairly represent the 
average public sentiment on moral questions of such gravity 
as the present. Perhaps lawyers are not more distinguished 
than other people for a nice sense of reciprocal justice and 
religious obligation, and it is certain that politicians are rarely 
moral philosophers, who have either a clear perception of the 
secret springs of human conduct or a conscientious regard for 
the poor victims of our imperfect civilization. 

The public authorities of New York recently put two men 
to death, under the forms of law and with the utmost deliber- 



THE DEATH PENALTY. I49 

ation ; at the same time the ministers of religion commended 
their souls to the mercy of God in the insulted name of Jesus 
of Nazareth. To comprehend the full measure of this mon- 
strous inconsistency it is necessary to recall the fact that this 
illustrious Teacher — whom the Church long since deified — 
while referring to the death penalty under the code of Moses, 
condemned the whole letter and spirit of the ancient judicial 
law, and declared that " he came not to destroy mens lives, but 
to save them." This grim and ghastly association of irrecon- 
cilable ideas and moral contradictions would present the most 
ridiculous farce in the world, if it did not unhappily involve 
the deepest of tragedies. 

The law may have been strictly complied with in the exe- 
cution of the two criminals referred to ; yet . it was made to 
appear from the evidence that the criminal in the one case 
was a murderer by accident rather than by design — that his 
victim probably died from fright and asphyxia. In the other 
case, it would appear that the perpetrator of the deed was en- 
raged to frenzy by the real or imaginary discovery that he 
had suffered a great wrong in his domestic relations. In such 
cases the injured party may unhappily be the victim of emo- 
tional insanity ; the public mind is often too much excited to 
reason calmly, and revenge is liable to usurp the throne of 
Justice. To restrain the wayward impulses of the people, the 
law invests the Governor of the State with the power to com- 
mute the punishment — to substitute a milder penalty — or to 
even pardon the offender, if he can find a justification for 
such an act of executive clemency. In conferring this dis- 
cretionary power upon the chief magistrate, the authors of the 



I50 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

criminal code have presumed him to be too dispassionate in 
his nature, too wise in his judgment and firm in his supreme 
devotion to the right, to be deeply influenced by popular im- 
pulses. Unfortunately, few men, even among our superior 
magistrates, ever reach this moral elevation. Too many of 
them are swayed by the views of the common mind and the 
unreasoning passions of the hour ; and hence many men have 
suffered death because the power to temper justice by the 
exercise of mercy was lodged in the hands of some one who 
had not the moral strength to resist the popular clamor, and 
the honesty to imperil his own personal and political pros- 
pects by acting on his convictions. The threatened loss of 

power is 

'■ A scarecrow set to frighten fools away." 

Is it not time for an intelligent people to inquire into the 
assumed natural right to sacrifice the lives of capital offenders 
against the peace of civilized society, and to discover a moral 
basis for the law, if any such exists ? It is the too common 
habit of the newspaper press to treat every man who lifts his 
voice against this relic of barbarian wickedness as if he were 
a sickly sentimentalist, whose morbid philanthropy takes no 
account of the principles of justice or the righteous demands 
of society. Nothing can be further from the truth than this 
characterization of the very numerous class of refined and cul- 
tivated people whose moral sense and religious convictions 
are shockingly outraged by every execution of a criminal. 

I propose to deal with principles whilst I examine the ar- 
gument for the Death Penalty, which is presumed to have a 
solid foundation in the constitution of society. I shall here 



THE DEATH PENALTY. I 5 I 

consider the question with especial reference to the relations 
of the individual to the State under our representative forms 
of government. It is confidently assumed. that the right to 
sacrifice life belongs to the community, and is derived from 
the very nature of the social compact. But this has never 
been made to appear from any logical course of reasoning. 
In the first place the relation existing between the individual 
and the civil government is not, strictly speaking, a compact. 
In a general sense a compact is a covenant, containing expressed 
stipulations, established by mutual consent of individuals or na- 
tions. It is not, however, by any voluntary arrangement (we 
except naturalized citizens in this statement), but rather by 
the accident of birth, that the relation of the individual to the 
State is determined. Should the nature of that relation not 
accord with his wishes, he must submit. True, it may be in 
his power to resist ; but opposition to the government may 
be regarded as treason. Some men possess the intellectual 
and physical ability to oppose for a time the execution of the 
laws ; but in the end — as it was in the days of Nero — " they 
that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." (Rom. 
xiii. 2.) As, therefore, a compact is properly an association 
of two or more parties — that is not involuntary or otherwise 
the result of accident, but the product of mutual conference 
and deliberate choice — it follows that the term does not cor- 
rectly represent the nature of the relation existing between 
the individual and the nation. 

Blackstone says : " It is clear that the right of punishing 
crimes against the law of Nature, as murder and the like, is, 
in a state of nature, vested in every individual, since all are 



152 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

by nature equal."* To assume that this right extends so far 
as to justify a second violation of the same law, is to abandon 
a sacred principle by adopting a kind of logic which may be 
best appreciated by the friends of the Death Penalty. Let us 
examine the foundation on which the State rests its claim. 
By what authority does it usurp Heaven's high prerogative in 
fixing arbitrary limits to human life ? 

It is admitted that representative governments are indebted 
for their rightful authority to the people who institute them ; 
and that so far from possessing any absolute or independent 
powers, they derive all their just prerogatives from a surrender 
of certain rights and privileges before possessed by the indi- 
viduals who compose the body politic. The rights of the 
nation are, therefore, only the rights of the citizens who to- 
gether constitute the State. This is preeminently the case 
under a democratic government. Now, as no citizen can sur- 
render to the civil authorities what he does not possess — and 
as no one is authorized to take his own life or that of his 
neighbor — the conclusion is inevitable that this is not the pre- 
rogative of the civil government, but of that Being who is the 
source of all life, and in whose hands are its issues forever. 

I may further expose the fallacy of the reasoning by which 
it is attempted to justify the Death Penalty by a simple trans- 
position in the form of the argument. It will be universally 
conceded that the Republic derives all its legitimate powers 
from the people ; and hence if the government has the right 
to destroy men's lives, the people must possess the same in- 



* See the Author's Commentaries, tenth London edition, vol. iv. , p. 7. 



THE DEATH PENALTY. I 53 

herent right in their individual capacity. This would furnish 
something like a logical apology for crime, and at the same 
time confer an air of respectability on the midnight assassin. 
On this ground the felonious homicide may take his stand and 
make a vigorous defense. If the right of the State to take 
life is admitted, and the democratic doctrine is maintained, 
that all its rights are derived from or conferred by the people, 
then it is only logical to conclude that man possesses this 
right as an individual.- From these premises the duello can 
readily be justified, and any man who has murder in his heart 
may reason thus : " I am one of the people, and hence — un- 
der the laws of Nature — have the right to take life ; and, 
since the State does not regard my wishes, I choose to exer- 
cise my natural right in person." And is not this reasoning 
quite as good as that by which nations vindicate their bloody 
deeds ? You may easily impeach the morality of such a man, 
but can you dispute his logic ? 

If any one is illogical enough to assume that men as indi- 
viduals have not the right to take life, but that the people in 
their collective capacity have, I desire to know how many 
men must be associated before they acquire the authority to 
hang a man or cut off his head ? If it is a wicked outrage 
against the laws of Nature and of God for one man to put 
another man to death, the question to be answered is : How 
many men must be engaged in the transaction to render killing at 
once a morally lawful punishment, and a legal, natural, and 
Divine institution ? Will the advocates of strangulation and 
decapitation answer ? 

The truth is, man as an individual has no such right. So- 

7* 



154 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ciety, being composed of individual members, cannot possess 
a right that is not integral in its constituent elements. Our 
executive, legislative, and judiciary powers have no such 
authority, for the plain and obvious reason that the sovereign 
people, whose creatures and servants they are, never possessed 
the right themselves. If, then, we attempt to defend this in- 
human penalty, we may well consider whether our influence 
will not strengthen the hands of violent and lawless men. 
Any system of law and logic whereby the State may ostensi- 
bly justify its sanguinary deeds, will furnish an apology for 
the duelist, the suicide, and the homicide. 

The law, which has for its object the preservation of human 
life, is founded on immutable principles. Murder has ever 
been regarded as the greatest outrage against the laws of 
Nature. The crime consists in the sacrifice of life, while the 
criminality is not materially increased or diminished by the moral 
characteristics of the victim. Much less does murder cease to 
be murder, intrinsically, because the killing is done under the 
forms of law. " Thou shall not kill " is a law that is not merely 
recorded in one ancient Book, but it is indelibly inscribed in 
the moral economy of the world. It is a law of universal and 
perpetual obligation. To reconcile this law with the manner 
in which capital offenders are punished, it is only necessary to 
demonstrate that hanging a man until he is dead is not kill- 
ing him ! That law stands forever unrepealed on the statute 
book of the Almighty. No artificial circumstances, created 
by the social relations and political institutions of men, can 
suspend the everlasting obligation. No power of the Repub- 
lic can repeal that law ; no principles underlying the structure 



THE DEATH PENALTY. 155 

of human governments can warrant this profane attempt to 
wrest from the Creator the issues of life. On the contrary, 
Nature and Deity everywhere speak in tones deep, solemn 
and impressive, to remind us of the everlasting inviolability 
of human life. 

But I may be told that " Self-preservation is the first law of 
Nature," and that this applies to communities as well as indi- 
viduals. This is cordially granted, but the fact furnishes no 
justification of the atrocious crimes of the State, which are 
defended alike by politicians, statesmen and divines, under 
the shallow assumption that society requires the bloody sacri- 
fice for its protection. Are they less criminal who skulk be- 
hind the forms of law, 

"And with necessity, 
The tyrant's plea, excuse their devilish deeds? " 

Let us strip this fallacy of its frail disguise. When a citi- 
zen is maliciously assailed and in imminent danger of losing his 
life, he may resist unto death, and, in the common judgment 
of men, be held blameless. But his right to make such resist- 
ance springs from the urgent necessity of the case, and it termi- 
nates the instaiit he is delivered from his peril. If he fortunately 
disarms his assailant ; if he succeeds in binding him, or other- 
wise in restraining his violence, there would remain — even 
under our imperfect laws — no justification for the infliction 
of personal injury. The right of the State must be measured 
by the same rule and restricted by the same rational limita- 
tions, since all the legitimate powers of a democratic govern- 
ment are derived from the people. When the lawless man is 
arrested in his mad career — fairly secured, so that he can do 



I56 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

no further mischief— the State has no reasonable excuse for 
deadly violence. Civilized society can restrain and control 
the dangerous classes without a resort to this savage policy. 
There is iron and granite enough in our everlasting hills to 
cover the Empire State with prisons and still leave enough 
to fence in the whole continent. 

In the dishonored names of virtue and religion we abuse 
humanity. We profess to worship God, and yet disfigure and 
mutilate his image. In the interest of morality we grow hemp 
and build gibbets. We pray to the common Father of us all 
to " forgive us our trespasses," while we have no mercy on his 
disobedient children. In the name of Justice we strangle 
penitent sinners whom God is said to have forgiven ! With 
our poor conceptions of its righteous demands we do well to 
represent Justice as blind. When ignorance of human nature 
determines the terms of the law, as is the case in this country, 
and a perverted sense of justice governs its administration, 
who can see clearly ? When the accredited teachers of moral- 
ity and religion make a county sheriff, with a halter in his 
hand, a minister ordained of God, and the gallows a divine 
institution, who among the rank and file of mystified saints 
and sinners can be expected to exercise a cool and rational 
discrimination ? 

The higher law imperatively demands a modification of the 
lex scripta loci. 

S. B. Brittan. 

Belvidere Seminary, ) 

Warren Co., N. J., October, 1880. ) 



MEETING THE ENEMY. 

CHARGES' OF THE TABERNACLE PASTOR EXAMINED. 

FROM THE BROOKLYN (x. Y.) DAILY EAGLE, NOV. 21, iSSo. 

Boanerges of the Modern Pulpit— Nuptials in Paradise— Dr. Talmage on Monogamy 
— He Charges Spiritualists with Free Love — Unfortunate Choice of a Theme — Is 
the Old Testament Opposed to Polygamy ? — Scriptural Illustrations — Household 
of the Hebrew Prince, Abraham — Sarah, Hagar. and Keturah — The Poet- Minstrel 
of Israel — Seventeen Wives and Concubines — Royal Harem of Solomon — Wor- 
shiping the Gods of his Mistresses — Divine Certificate of his Moral Health- 
Humble Imitators at Salt Lake — Seraglio on the Bosphorus — A Gospel Shepherd 
in the Shades of the Cyprians — What Spiritualism Demands — Subordination of 
the Animal Appetites and Passions — What and Where are the " Carrion Crows ? " 
— Beauties of the Turkish Harem — A Clergyman Testifies that they are the 
Daughters of Christian Parents — Orthodoxy and the Penitentiary — Falling from 
Grace — Prison Standard of Faith and Morals — Loose Screws in the Social Plat- 
form — Attempts to Identify Free Love and Spiritualism — L nclean Birds of Mod- 
ern Babylon — Fowls that came to Roost but found no Rest — Presbyterianism 
and the Oneida Community- — Saints Bankrupt in Righteousness — Spiritualism, 
the Angel Standing in the Sun — Consecration of the Home Life by a Layman— 
A Modest Spiritualist the most Effective Preacher— John Howard Payne, Author 
of " Sweet Home." 

" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." — Bible. 
To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle : 

MY attention was recently called to the report of a 
discourse by Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, delivered in 
the Brooklyn Tabernacle on the first Sunday in October. 
The main object of the eccentric teacher seems to have been 
to arraign and denounce the enemies of the divine institution 
of monogamous marriage ; and so far it may be presumed 
that he fairly represents the general sentiments of all civilized 
nations. But there are several things in this loose harangue 

157 



I58 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

which would invite severe criticism if they were only pre- 
sented with some show of reason, or otherwise supported by 
the evidence of a single fact. It will be obvious to every log- 
ical mind that the giddy brain of this sensational preacher 
imposes no restraints upon a lawless tongue. Two things, 
however, lend a fictitious importance to what he may say. 
First, is the fact that he is the accepted religious instructor 
of a large society and congregation of people who profess the 
Christian religion ; and, Second, that his utterances obtain a 
much wider and more enduring expression through influential 
public journals. It is chiefly for these reasons that I am in- 
duced to notice this discourse, and these considerations alone 
must serve as my apology for asking space in your columns 
for this letter. 

The preacher's exordium — describing the nuptials of Adam 
and Eve in Paradise — most resembles a rhapsodical prolusion 
by a mad poetaster, who mistakes the small pyrotechnics of 
his own disordered brains for a heavy rain of Promethean 
fire. The whole picture is worked up in what may be, for 
aught we know, a pre-raphaelite style. The wild beasts oc- 
cupy the back room in Eden, and are on their best behavior 
before the new lord of creation, while the birds perform the 
grand epithalamium or nuptial song in proper time. (No cards.) 

After this poetic rhapsody the preacher enters at once 
upon the solid work of his argument to prove that the Old 
Testament is at war with the practice of polygamy, and that 
the sacred writings of the Jews consistently support the sa- 
credness of the divinely ordained institution of monogamy, or 
the marriage to only one wife. In attempting to prove this 



MEETING THE ENEMY. I 59 

from the book itself, and to defend some of its authors from 
the suspicion of being tainted with free love, the speaker is 
more earnest than convincing. Indeed, it must be admitted 
that our modern Boanerges, in popular parlance, undertakes 
a very heavy contract, but he evidently thinks he is equal to 
the task, and the real facts in the case do not appear to sub- 
ject him to the least possible embarrassment. On this point 
his reasoning and complacency remind us of the peculiar logic 
and self- satisfaction of the Hibernian, who, having stated his 
theory of a certain subject, was told that the facts in the case 
proved the contrary, when he replied, " Bad luck to the facts, 
then." Dr. Talmage attaches a similar importance to his own 
naked assumptions, and never suspects that facts susceptible 
of the clearest demonstration as effectually explode his hol- 
low pretensions as a shot from a columbiad would demolish a 
chicken-coop. 

, It is true that the most illustrious of the Hebrew patriarchal 
princes, faithful Abraham, had not only Sarah for his wife, 
but two concubines, namely, Hagar and Keturah — wives of 
inferior rank, whose offspring could claim no lawful inher- 
itance in the father's estate. Not to speak of the inferior per- 
sonages, whose lives are a subject of record in the Jewish 
Scriptures, we may mention the fact that David had seven 
wives and ten concubines. The latter he left as mistresses of 
the royal palace when, during the conspiracy of his son Absa- 
lom, he fled, with bare feet, from the Holy City, over Mount 
Olivet, the king and his attendants, with bowed and covered 
heads, "weeping as they went" their way. (II. Sam., chap, 
xv.) And yet " the Lord God of Israel " is represented as 



l6o • THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

speaking of him after his death as " my servant David, who 
kept my commandments and who followed me with all his 
heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes." (I. 
Kings, xiv. 8.) Then Solomon — according to the catechism, 
the wisest of men — had no less than " seven hundred wives," 
princesses who, the pious Alexander Cruden — author of the 
" Complete Concordance of the Holy Scriptures " — tells us, 
" all lived in the quality of queens," and " three hundred con- 
cubines" — one thousand in all. 

It is written in the First Book of Kings that this wise man 
" loved many strange women ; " also, that " it came to pass, 
when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart 
after other gods." The history shows that he erected altars 
in high places and worshiped the gods of his mistresses, in- 
cluding the bloody Moloch, chief divinity of the Ammonites, 
to whom human sacrifices were offered in the valley of Hin- 
nom or Tophet. Perhaps we ought not to be surprised that 
Solomon went after and supported the grossest abominations 
of the surrounding heathen tribes. A man with so many 
queens and women of inferior rank to keep his house would 
be more than human if he did not do something desperate to 
entertain the court and divert his own mind from the miseries 
of his situation. In his senile imbecility we might naturally 
expect that he would be as likely to worship one god as an- 
other. Yet the Lord is represented as bearing testimony to 
the unimpeachable wisdom of Solomon in these words : " Lo, 
I have given thee a wise and understanding heart ; so that 
there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall 
any arise like unto thee." (I. Kings, chap, iii.) 



MEETING THE ENEMY. l6l 

In respect to his free love proclivities and the number of 
his wives, Solomon has certainly had his peers in these lattei 
days. True, our own Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are 
only vulgar imitators of a regal prototype, following at a re- 
spectable distance, and subject to the embarrassing conditions 
and circumstances of our own improved civilization. But the 
Grand Turk at Constantinople has sometimes had more wives 
than even " Solomon in all his glory." In the reign of several 
of the sultans — within the present century — the imperial harem 
has included from fifteen hundred to two thousand beautiful 
young women, all slaves, and sacrificed to the lawless passion 
of one unscrupulous master. These are mainly contributions 
from Turkish provinces and the Greek islands, while a large 
proportion of them are said to be the daughters of Christian 
parents.* We have no means of knowing how many such veiled 
beauties now occupy the summer seraglio on the Bosphorus. 

Dr. Talmage has a convenient faculty of seeing only what 
suits him, while to everything else he is happily blind. He 
hustles the records of history, the facts of science and every 
day's experience out of his way, as readily as a bustling house- 
wife sweeps down cobwebs. Regardless of premises and all 
rules of ratiocination, he vaults with a reckless daring to 
such surprising results that one almost fancies the shepherd's 
crook has become a magician's wand. It is not strange that 
such a man should announce the astounding discovery that 
Modern Spiritualism originated the " free-love " doctrine, and 



* The reader is referred to the Encyclopedia of " Useful Knowledge 
and General Literature," by Rev. J. L. Blake, A. M., page 831. 



l62 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

that those who practice it " are almost all Spiritualists." It 
would, however, surprise us to know that any sensible man is 
disposed to credit this assumption. That no one may either 
misapprehend the Oracle of the Tabernacle, or suspect the 
present writer of misrepresenting his views, I here reproduce 
what he says on this particular topic : 

4 ' Another mighty foe of the family relation is the prevalent doctrine 
of free love. Newspapers in advocacy of these doctrines fill the land. 
The greatest argument against it is that the advocates of it, without any 
exception, turn out libertines. Having broken up their own homes, they 
go about to destroy the homes of others. This obscene flock of carrion 
crows caw, caw, caw on their way to and from the moral carcasses. They 
are almost all Spiritualists, and they get the people of this world and the 
next so mixed up that they don't know who belong to them and who be- 
long to the others. Free love and Spiritualism are twin sisters, and their 
morals are so bankrupt that they cannot pay one per cent, of righteous- 
ness. I can tell the spirits of the next world that if they cannot find any 
better company than they are said to pick out on earth, they had better 
stay where they are if they have any regard for their reputation. When 
those who are united in holy marriage have a special affinity for some one 
outside that bond, they had better go to studying the ten Commandments. 
Such persons are on the edge of a fall about ten thousand feet down. 
But at that distance they only strike once on the rocks and then bound 
off into the unfathomable." 

Spiritualists do not concern themselves about the manner 
in which this Shepherd of souls may choose to pursue the 
game of which he speaks, namely, " this obscene flock of 
carrion crows ; " and as little do they care to know whether 
the chase is for exercise, profit or amusement. Being a lively 
representative of the Brooklyn pulpit we can but realize that 
the Messenger of the Tabernacle knows — from observation of 
course — a thing or two about the average phases of free love, 
also of its accidental relations to the church and the ministe- 



MEETING THE ENEMY. 1 63 

rial office ; likewise concerning its liability to produce great 
trials and social discords, in which the family relations may 
be ruptured for all time. Moreover, having in his ministerial 
capacity "for righteousness' sake " — to the end that he might 
see and comprehend the naked truth, however shocking to 
his moral sensibilities — made the circuit of the gin mills and 
gambling hells of New York ; and having, also, under the 
protection of Providence and the Metropolitan police — whose 
ways are mysterious and past finding out — repeatedly visited 
the haunted shades of the Cyprians, it is quite possible he 
may have found the roosting places of the " unclean birds " 
of our modern Babylon. If he did, he must know that when 
he made this discovery he was neither in the illuminated 
courts of the great Spiritual Temple nor yet in the dwelling 
places of its recognized worshipers. Let us respectfully ad- 
monish this clerical sportsman that in this field his instinct is 
more unerring than his reason. If he is careful to keep the 
trail and not allow himself to double in the dark, and so re- 
turn to the starting-point, he will find the game at last. Nor 
is this all ; he will not incur the least danger of poaching on 
any consecrated ground, or of being held for trespass on the 
complaint of any Spiritualist. 

When a public religious teacher, whose office is supposed 
to insure something like the practice of righteousness in his 
treatment of others, using both pulpit and press in the dis- 
semination of his views, boldly charges that Spiritualism is 
responsible for the free love doctrine, for the breaking up of 
so many homes and the utter desecration of the most impor- 
tant of all human relations, the Spiritualists claim the right to 



164 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

meet the man on his own chosen ground who thus defames 
their character and dishonors their most hallowed convictions. 
That Modern Spiritualism can sustain any natural relation 
whatever to illicit love and licentiousness is an assumption 
which cannot be supported by a single substantial reason. 
These things never had any such relation ; indeed, they 
never can have, since, in their very nature, they are es- 
sentially and forever incompatible. The principles of Spirit- 
ualism and the unrestrained indulgence of the animal pas- 
sions are so irreconcilable as to be incapable of permanent 
coexistence. 

But I shall be told that a number of professed Spiritualists 
have actually broken up their homes, established other rela- 
tions, or allowed themselves to drift at random, following one 
attraction or another, as determined by temporary conven- 
ience or the passion of the hour. This is, unhappily, too true ; 
but it is no less susceptible of the clearest demonstration that, 
outside of the ranks of Spiritualists, there are numberless ex- 
amples, including many church members and several clergy- 
men, who, through the triple power of " the world, the flesh, 
and the devil," have "fallen from grace" — from places as 
high and to depths as low as any Spiritualist is likely to find. 
Every one knows that there were many cases of alienation, 
desertion, and divorce before the advent of Modern Spirit- 
ualism. Men and women have often been unequally yoked 
together in all ages, principally by the clergy, and domestic un- 
happiness is no new thing under the sun. We have never yet 
met with a single spirit, in all our intercourse with the invisi- 
ble intelligences, who either recommended or sanctioned the 



MEETING THE ENEMY. 1 65 

looseness of life which is charged to the account of the great 
body of Spiritualists. It finds no countenance in the princi- 
ples of the Spiritual Philosophy. On the contrary, if I have 
any knowledge of this subject, this pure and sublime phi- 
losophy demands of every man that he shall subordinate 
the appetites, impulses, and passions of his lower nature to 
reason and to the laws of the higher or spiritual life. It is 
in this respect, especially, that Spiritualism, in its most com- 
prehensive sense, rises heavenward above all other systems 
in its supreme demands for the purification of human nature, 
the consecration of all our powers to beneficent uses, and 
the highest moral elevation of our ideal of the divine life on 
earth. 

Now, what would become of the existing religious institu- 
tions if they were judged by the character of such of their 
supporters as fall below the standard of morals they set up ? 
It is a notorious fact that most of the criminals who fill the 
State prisons all over this country are firm believers in the 
cardinal doctrines of the evangelical churches. In some of 
the prisons investigations have been made into the religious 
faith of the convicts without discovering a single Quaker, 
Swedenborgian, Unitarian, or Spiritualist. Scarcely a capital 
offender against the laws swings out of time into eternity at 
the end of a halter who does not express his belief in the doc- 
trines of original sin, total depravity, vicarious atonement, a 
personal devil, and a merciless retribution for all the impeni- 
tent. Multitudes of these people live and die in the Cal- 
vinistic faith. Now is Mr. Talmage willing to have the min- 
isters of his faith, the people of his charge, and his system 



1 66 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

of religion, all judged by the State prison standard of char- 
acter ? If he is not, it may be well for him to take warning 
from the Scripture which reads : ''''For with the same measure 
that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." (Luke 
vi. 38.) 

Not only is it represented that the free lovers " are almost 
all Spiritualists," but it is affirmed that " newspapers in advo- 
cacy of these doctrines fill the land." One would be author- 
ized to infer from this that such papers are more numerous 
about here than were the frogs which came out of the waters 
in the days of the Egyptian plagues. Also that, with few ex- 
ceptions — not worth mentioning — they are all supported by 
Spiritualists. But what are the facts ? Why, that there is not 
a single spiritual paper, either in this country or Europe, that 
has any recognition as an exponent of the facts and philoso- 
phy of Spiritualism, which advocates free love on the plane 
of our animal life. 

Two conspicuous attempts have been made, from first to last, 
to establish such papers on the patronage of Spiritualists ; but 
they received so little encouragement that they very soon died, 
not alone from the sad infirmities of their projectors, but of a 
moral and material marasmus and their own pestilential at- 
mosphere. The first and most notable attempt of this kind 
occurred a quarter of a century ago, and was the enterprise of 
a certain well-known doctor and his wife, aided by a conspic- 
uous author of books on sociology, and one Lazarus, an un- 
clean writer on love and the marriage relation. In this par- 
ticular instance the disappointed editors and publishers so 
utterly failed in their illegitimate enterprise that, in the excite- 



MEETING THE ENEMY. 1 6/ 

ment of penitence or desperation, they were suddenly con- 
verted to Roman Catholicism ! It was a pleasant relief to be 
assured that religion, or something else, had cooled the hot 
blood, and that the feverish souls of those free lovers had at 
last found rest in the bosom of the mother Church. 

The next most demonstrative attempt of the free lovers to 
affiliate with Spiritualism was scarcely more successful, and it 
finally resulted in a similar failure. When the free dispensa- 
tion of love, that was not altogether Platonic, ceased to bring 
the visible means of support, the paper was suspended. Then 
the fair proprietors — leaving the disconsolate brokers who de- 
pended on them for occult information in their stock-gambling 
operations — went abroad to manipulate the verdant scions of 
the English aristocracy for their personal delectation and in 
the interest of their cause. The two or three small sheets — 
unwashed rags of papers — printed monthly or semi-occasion- 
ally, in little country towns, have no more influence on the 
great body and mind of Spiritualists than so many outside 
cabbage leaves. 

The Spiritualists have no virtue and religion to boast of, nor 
are they accustomed to advertise their piety from the pulpit 
and in the papers. Indeed, the Divine Messenger at the Tab- 
ernacle boldly affirms that we " cannot pay one per cent, of 
righteousness." If this is so, the failure is complete ; and it 
is all the more to be lamented for the reason that we may not 
hope to borrow any small surplus of righteousness from those 
who accuse us falsely. Such people are sure to have enough 
to do to attend to their own obligations. And here we are 
reminded that they have another advantage over Spiritualists 



1 68 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

which is a great thing for those who most need it — they have 
a moral and theological bankrupt law by which any rascal — 
even the vilest sinner — may have the righteousness of a just 
man imputed to him. Under this peculiar arrangement those 
who wickedly revile their neighbors may continue to do so — 
may grossly misrepresent their characters, views and conduct 
as long as they are so disposed, and at last escape by taking 
the benefit of that law. 

The man whose business it is to dispense Calvinism and 
his own crude ideas at the Tabernacle is ignorant of one sub- 
ject on which he presumes to speak with oracular authority. 
Spiritualism is not the insignificant and slipshod creature of 
his imagination. No ! it is a mighty Angel, descended from 
Heaven and radiant with the morning light of a New Dispen- 
sation. It comes to roll the stone away from the sepulchre 
of universal humanity, and to demonstrate our immortality. 
In the presence of men and angels it breaks the seals of the 
invisible arcana, and reveals the sources of the world's inspira- 
tion. It is the living interpreter of the sacred books of all 
ages and nations. Spiritualism has no flesh and blood rela- 
tions. It never had a " twin sister," and hence can not have 
had one of easy virtue. The man who thus boldly defames 
many noble men, not excepting their mothers, wives, and 
daughters — women of pure minds and blameless lives — does 
not appear to be familiar with biblical history. He evidently 
does not know how many orthodox clergymen are in the 
State Prisons of the country ; and he quite overlooks the fact 
that one of his brethren — a Presbyterian divinity student — 
founded the Oneida Community, so long an offense in the 



MEETING THE ENEMY. 1 69 

nostrils of Christians and Infidels. On the contrary, Spirit- 
ualism sustains about the same relation to passional " free 
love " that the uncorrupted Gospel of Jesus did to the scarlet 
woman of the Apocalypse. 

The charge that Spiritualists, as a people, have less respect 
for the relations of home than others has no better foundation 
than ignorance of the real facts and the heedlessness which is 
governed by the most superficial appearances. In referring 
to this subject we are reminded of a man who, many years 
ago, was a frequent and most welcome visitor at the residence 
of the writer. He was a gentleman of rare intelligence and 
unusual refinement, with the feeling and taste of a true poet 
and the delicate sensibilities of a pure woman. Though a 
wanderer for long years, in many countries and among rude 
peoples, yet the domestic circle — the sanctuary where faith is 
mutual and all the chaste affections bud and blossom in the 
unclouded sunshine of love — was the ideal of his life. No 
saint ever sought a holy shrine with a more sincere devotion ; 
yet the heaven of his imagination eluded his grasp. He was 
a wanderer to the end. While engaged in the service of his 
country he died far away in a foreign land. His ashes mingle 
with the sterile sands of Algiers, but his spirit has gone home 
to rest in heaven. This modest layman did more to conse- 
crate the domestic relations and affections in the universal 
mind and heart than all the dogmatic theologians and homi- 
lists of the present century. Our gentle friend was the author 
of " Home, Sweet Home-." His name is yet green in the 
world's memory, and his song will continue to be sung in 
every land and in all living tongues. John Howard Payne 



170 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

gave us that deathless song, and he was a Spiritualist ! Rest, 
spirit of blessed memory ! * 

S. B. Brittan. 

Belvidere Seminary, ) 

Warren Co., N. J., October, 1880. ) 



Home, Sweet Home. — At the close of the letter from the 
Brooklyn Eagle the reader will have noticed the writer's inci- 
dental allusion to his friend, John Howard Payne, and the 
song which, more than any other in the world's minstrelsy, 
has consecrated the sacred relations of domestic life. It may 
not be out of place here to offer a suggestion for the con- 
sideration of Spiritualists. I have felt it to be my duty to 
repel the vile charge brought against this people by a pro- 
fessed minister of Jesus, whose extreme poverty — in respect 
to the amenities of polite discussion and the charity which 
" thinketh no evil " of the neighbor — is painfully conspicuous. 
But I am forcibly reminded, that the people whom he has so 
coarsely abused have it in their power to furnish a refutation 
— more emphatic than any language I can command — of this 
wholesale calumny. Let them erect, in Central Park, a monu- 
ment to the memory of the distinguished disciple of their faith, 
who, though his gentle voice is audible no more, still speaks 
in his undying song to millions in all the tongues of the civil- 
ized world. S. B. B. 



* Mr. Wilson, a most enterprising citizen of Brooklyn, incurred the 
expense of ten thousand copies of the foregoing Letter, which were 
printed under his direction in pamphlet form, for gratuitous circulation. 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 

HARMONY OF FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 
THE ACTIVE FORCE IN THE MORAL WORLD. 

FROM THE (NEWBURYPORT) MERRIMAC VALLEY VISITOR. 

The Andover Professor on Spiritualism— The Spirits at Stratford— Rev. Eliakim 
Phelps, D.D.— Irreverent Handling- of the Sacred Canon— Fantoccini by the In- 
visibles in the Wardrobe — Demons Suspected of Arson — Waiting- for the Savants 
— Falling back on Demonology— Science in Despair and Theology Desperate- 
Where are the Angels of Mercy? — Tartarean Jail Delivery — Power of Spirits 
over the Elements— Views of the Ancient Greeks — Testimony of Philosophers, 
Apostles, Pagan Historians and Christian Fathers— Truth about Demons— Visions 
of a Theological Professor — How he Views Modern Spiritualism — Disorderly 
Manifestations Among the Ancients— Significant Examples from the Scriptures 
— Lying under a Divine Commission — Unclean and Dumb Spirits — Swinish Affin- 
ities — Paul's Indictment of the Early Christians — Infidels at the Baptism and the 
Communion— Low Mediums of Sacred History— Contest between Science and 
Theology — Enlarging the Domain of Science — The Great Reformation. 

WHEN the general at the head of an army finds himself 
in an exposed position, and harassed by constant as- 
saults from without — with a prospect of soon being obliged to 
surrender to the wily and powerful enemy that is thundering 
along his lines — he may not stop to discuss the morality of the 
measures to be adopted in this emergency. Under such cir- 
cumstances saints and sinners look and behave so much alike 
that one may not recognize a difference so marked as to admit 
of a logical distinction. Each holds his ground as long as pos- 
sible, repelling the assailants with such weapons as he may be 
able to find, only capitulating when further resistance is in 
vain. The individual in the battle of life acts from similar 

171 



1/2 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

motives ; and even the religious teacher, instead of bearing 
about him the shield of righteousness and the sword of the 
spirit, may perhaps be tempted to depend on some infernal 
magazine for his armor. Even doctors of divinity do not wait 
for the gods to place consecrated weapons in their hands. On 
the contrary, they strike back with a will, often in a spirit of 
unholy hostility, and with such implements as may enable them 
to serve the purpose of the hour by the circumvention of the 
enemy. The peculiar strategy exhibited of late in the war 
against Spiritualism, is a suggestive text which, in the mind of 
the reader, may justify some special application of the fore- 
going observations ; at the same time the subject requires 
further elucidation. 

We cannot pause in the midst of more important labors to 
notice the many frivolous objections to Spiritualism that daily 
fall from the lips of the unthinking multitude. But we are 
reminded that there are men of experience who long since had 
opportunities for personal observation, and are admitted to 
possess a certain reputation for scholastic acquirements and 
intellectual ability. When, for example, such a man as Prof. 
Austin Phelps, of Andover, expresses his views on a subject 
which carries along with it the strongest evidences of our im- 
mortality, and is so closely allied to the fundamental princi- 
ples and essential interests of all revealed religion, we can 
only treat him with proper respect by weighing his words, 
which I propose to do in this communication. 

As early as 1850, remarkable spiritual phenomena occurred 
in the family mansion of Rev. Eliakim Phelps, D.D., of Strat- 
ford, Conn., father of the Andover professor, who was then 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1 73 

about commencing his theological studies. At first he was 
supposed to entertain the suspicion that the manifestations 
were the mischievous tricks of the children of Mrs. Phelps by 
her former husband. At the solicitation of the venerable doc- 
tor, Mr. Austin Phelps went home^on a visit, expecting to 
speedily explain the mystery and put an end to the disorderly 
proceedings at the old homestead. He soon satisfied himself, 
however, that the children had no voluntary or conscious 
agency in the matter. He pursued his investigation with a 
pious determination to stop the noisy demonstrations of the 
Spirits ; but they never recognized his authority. They did 
not even respect the wishes of the venerable master of the 
house. While he was engaged in prayer for deliverance from 
his infernal visitors the Spirits would hurl the Bible at him. 
Sometimes the sacred canon would pass close enough to his 
head to brush his whiskers, but never doing him the slightest 
personal injury. We have no conclusive evidence that the 
invisible powers undervalued the truths contained in the book. 
One of the spirits declared " There was a good deal of truth 
in the Bible, but a good deal of nonsense, too." While they 
did not regard it as a fetich to be worshiped, they took oc- 
casion to show that they had no special reverence for the 
chemical elements of paper, printer's ink, and the sheep, goat, 
or calf-skin with which it was bound. Neither prayers, en- 
treaties, nor denunciations imposed the slightest check upon 
the daily and nightly serio-comic performances, all of which 
the good doctor regarded as nothing less than the most dia- 
bolical infestation. 

The assumption that the spirits at Stratford were all of an 



174 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

infernal type or degenerate character — diabolical in disposi- 
tion and malicious in deed — is not supported by a rational 
analysis of the facts. The present writer lived at Bridgeport 
— within the distance of four miles — during the exciting period, 
and repeatedly visited the residence of Dr. Phelps. The facts 
plainly indicated that the Spirits were determined to command 
attention. They had something which they deemed it impor- 
tant to communicate, and evidently resolved to be heard for 
the sake of their cause. Courtly people are accustomed to 
gracefully bow their intrusive visitors out of their presence ; 
but when the Doctor attempted to exorcise his unwelcome 
guests by prayer and speeches referring to their characters 
in terms more orthodox than complimentary, they only mani- 
fested a still stronger determination to remain until the object 
of their mission should be fairly accomplished. When at length 
candid inquiry succeeded dogmatism and denunciation, the 
apparent violence ceased, and the manifestations assumed a 
more quiet and orderly character. 

The phenomena at the Phelps mansion continued during a 
period of some seven months, and it is believed that a candid 
review of the facts would fail to discover any positive evi- 
dence that the Spirits had the least disposition to inflict per- 
sonal injury on any member of the family. They only empha- 
sized the demonstrations of their presence in the degree nec- 
essary to secure respectful attention. If the silver spoons 
were " bent double by no visible agency," they were all made 
" straight as before, with no dent or crease, or sign of having 
been bent" at all. When the family wardrobe was mysteriously 
entered and emptied of its contents, and the garments so dis- 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1/5 

posed as to represent the effigies of a number of human 
beings, the clothes were neither destroyed nor damaged. The 
doors were not materially injured by the " tremendous ham- 
mering," which always appeared to be on the opposite side 
from the observer. On one occasion, when the whole family 
went to church, leaving the house locked up, they returned 
finding the front door wide open, which suggested the idea 
that a robbery had been committed ; but not an article of 
personal property was missing. It is true that the doctor's 
barn was one day destroyed by fire, and that the invisible 
powers fell under suspicion of being the authors of the mis- 
chief. I was never able to discover any reliable evidence 
that the Spirits were guilty of arson ; but as they were pre- 
sumed to have come in hot haste from that realm of intense 
incandescence so glowingly described in the Calvinistic the- 
ology, it was but natural that those who were sound in the 
faith should look to hell for the incendiaries.* 

For a solution of the problem involved in the modern 
spiritual mysteries, Prof. Phelps, having waited long and in 
vain for science to explain the facts, reluctantly rests for the 
present on the demonology of the Bible, as will be perceived 
on perusal of his recent letter to the Corigregationalist. The 
Professor occupies his present position from necessity rather 
than choice. He does not seriously object to the historical 
evil demons of the Jews and Greeks, but timidly shrinks from 
those whose incursions cross the orbit of his life. He still 



* For Prof essor Phelps" own narrative of his observations at his father's 
residence, the reader is referred to ''Spiritual Manifestations," by the 
Rev. Charles Beecher. 



J 7^ THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

indulges a lingering hope that the savants may yet "give us 
something better " — vain hope, since the scientists who hon- 
estly investigate are converted. In the mean time the " de- 
spair of science " is the desperation of theology. I extract 
the following paragraph from the Professor's letter : 

" I do not hold to the hypothesis that Spiritualism is of Satanic origin, 
without qualification. I hold it as a hypothesis, the probability of which 
must depend on the degree of mastery which science obtains over the 
whole subject. It is only under the conditions that, before some of the 
phenomena in question, science is dumb, that I resort to the supernatural 
theory at all. In common with the rest of the world, I am waiting for 
science to recover from its ' despair,' and to give us some explanation of 
the facts which shall deserve respect. It is not wise to find more of the 
demoniacal in the universe than we are compelled to find. But so long 
as science gives us nothing better, my mind falls back upon the Biblical 
demonology, as being the most probable thing we have, within the range 
of human knowledge, in explanation of the mystery." 

It may seem a little singular that a man who sincerely ac- 
cepts a religious system for which he claims a supernatural 
origin, should question physical science for over thirty years 
for an explanation of similar mysteries, and that we should 
still find him patiently " waiting for science to recover from 
its despair ! " Is there not something anomalous in the Pro- 
fessor's attitude ? Why should a man who really believes in 
the power and disposition of God and his invisible ministers, 
and of the devil and his angels, to work in opposition to 
natural laws and all ordinary methods, manifest such extreme 
reluctance in accepting the present application of his theory ? 

It will be observed that Prof. Phelps, Rev. Charles Beecher, 
Rev. Joseph Cook and others, in accepting the demonological 
theory, admit the spiritual origin of the modern phenomena. 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1 77 

This is a most important concession to Spiritualism, and these 
men are on record as leading the way for its final acceptance 
by the Church. They seem to have discovered that this is the 
only way in which they may hope to successfully defend the 
claims of revealed religion against the scientific materialism 
of the age. Forced to retreat from a field that is lost, and to 
reluctantly fall back on the demonology of the Bible, as the 
fortress from which alone they may hope to vindicate its own 
claims, these gentlemen appear to derive a melancholy satis- 
faction from the reflection that the Spirits in these days are 
all evil, and therefore proper subjects of our pious displeasure 
and of the Divine reprobation. 

But how is it possible for the rational mind to have a pref- 
erence for this view of the subject ? Can it afford any sane 
man or woman — any creature in human shape — pleasure to 
believe that while there has been a general jail delivery in the 
infernal regions, to the imminent peril of this world, still the 
celestial angels are all either cooped up in some orthodox 
heaven, or off on an everlasting pleasure excursion to other 
worlds ? Are there indeed no angels of mercy who enjoy 
their freedom, and will come at our call to shield the helpless, 
and lead earth's poor wanderers home ? 

Perhaps the ostensible motive of some of our modern di- 
vines is not the One that really determines their action. I cer- 
tainly have no disposition to judge them uncharitably. It 
would seem, however, to an unregenerate observer, that the 
chief purpose in accepting the phenomena of modern Spirit- 
ualism as illustrations of ancient demonology, is to turn the 
essential facts to practical account in the clerical war against 
8* 



I78 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

the materialism of science. That these facts furnish the clergy 
with powerful weapons which may be used with great force in 
that particular direction, there can be no doubt. And as 
nothing can have been made or permitted to exist in vain, our 
religious people may finally be able to utilize hell and modern 
Spiritualism by converting the whole into an armory, from 
which the soldiers of the cross may be able to draw their im- 
plements and means of defense in their war against the most 
formidable enemy of the Church. 

I trust I shall not make the mistake of treating the super- 
ficial views of even the enemies of Spiritualism with either un- 
due levity or severity. The truth I am called to defend is 
one of grave importance and far-reaching in its relations to 
the highest human interests. A subject of such solemn mo- 
ment ; so profound in its principles ; so subtile, irresistible 
and universal in its influence, should inspire a just sense of 
personal responsibility in the public teacher, and it should be 
treated in a manner becoming its high quality. I do not pro- 
pose to temporize, nor to diminish the force of a great truth 
by unnecessary qualifications. If this truth is the sword of 
the Spirit, who shall venture to blunt its edge, or permit it to 
be tarnished by unworthy hands ? 

In the history of the early nations, especially in their sacred 
literature and monumental remains, we discover many evi- 
dences of the occult mysteries which appear to have been 
everywhere indentified with the origin of religious ideas. In- 
deed, it may be safely affirmed that every religious system 
which has exerted any strong and lasting influence on the 
human mind and character, has been founded on certain 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. I JQ 

spiritual facts, or phenomena illustrating the intimate relations 
of the physical world and the realms of incorporeal life and 
intelligence. The ancient nations not only believed in the 
existence and presence of invisible intelligent beings, but 
they recognized their power over the elements and forms of 
the physical world, their capacity to influence human feeling, 
thought and action, and to direct the current of public affairs. 
The religious ceremonies of ancient Greece ; her aesthetic 
revelations, dramatic creations, and every form of commem- 
orative art, history and poetry — all abound with evidences of 
the recognition of Spirits from another world. Hesiod, one 
of the earliest Greek writers believed that Spirits presided 
over the destinies of men. His views concerning their exist- 
ence, presence and influence within the sphere of human life 
on earth are expressed in the following lines : 

Aerial Spirits by great Jove designed 

To be on earth the guardians of mankind ; 

Invisible to mortal eyes they go, 

And mark our actions, good or bad, below ; 

The immortal spies with watchful care preside, 

And thrice ten thousand round their charges glide ; 

They can reward with glory or with gold, 

Such power divine permission bids them hold." 

The most gifted minds, in all countries and in every period 
of the world's history, have entertained the spiritual idea, and 
given it various forms of expression. The Hebrews, Greeks 
and Romans ascribed important facts in their experience, 
and many events of national importance, to the interposition 
of invisible intelligences. The sacred books of the Hindoos 
and other Pagan nations recognize the powers of the unseen 



l80 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

world in the management of human affairs. The Jewish, 
Christian and Moslem Scriptures are filled with allusions to 
Spirits, their positive existence, the revelation of their pres- 
ence among men, and all the diversified exhibitions of their 
power. St. Paul speaks of " the prince of the power of the 
air," and St. Jerome assures us that in his time the doctors 
of the Church entertained the opinion that the air was peo- 
pled by Spirits. Such references are often met with -in the 
writings of the apostolic fathers and early historians of the 
Church, who believed that the more impure spirits did not 
occupy the higher or more ethereal regions of the atmosphere, 
but were disposed to dwell below in intimate relations with 
the earth. The fundamental fact of the constant interpene- 
tration of the mundane realm of existence by the inspiring 
influences and moral forces of the Spiritual Spheres, was so 
generally accredited among the ancients that their eminent 
authors do not appear to have thought it necessary to mar- 
shal proofs in support of a proposition which no competent 
authority was likely to dispute. 

And here I must mention the fact that one very common 
theological assumption has been the means at once of leading 
multitudes of sincere believers into a mischievous error, and 
of libeling millions of saints in heaven. It is boldly assumed 
that all demons must necessarily be evil spirits. Prof. Phelps, 
being a Greek scholar, is of course better informed, and might 
readily correct this error if so disposed. And yet he falls 
back on the demonology of the Bible, without so much as a 
single intimation that a demon may be a pure and good spirit 
in spite of the bad name given him by the translators. The 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 151 

truth is, the Greek word is altogether neutral as to any moral 
suggestions respecting the character of the intelligences to 
which it was applied. The Platonists recognized the presence 
of invisible genii, and believed that men were incited to both 
good and evil deeds by their influence. Socrates was visited 
by spirits of opposite characters, and a good demon was his 
counsellor. Lactantius accepted the idea that there are two 
general classes of demons, celestial and terrestrial, and he re- 
garded the latter as primarily the authors of all the wrongs 
perpetrated on earth. The original word is very improperly 
rendered devil in the English version of the New Testament. 
The demons of the Greeks were evidently spirits of men who 
had previously existed on earth. To say the least, they were 
individualized intelligences of the human stamp. The word 
signified nothing more. It certainly did not determine the 
moral character of these intelligences, since there were both 
celestial and terrestrial demons, or good and evil Spirits. 

The false idea I have attempted to expose has no better 
foundation than a dogmatic assumption without proof and 
against reason. It has been long and tenderly cultivated by 
those who know how sadly this thorn in the world's path has 
scratched and lacerated our poor humanity. Let it now be 
plucked up by the roots and destroyed by the consuming fire 
which is the most expressive symbol of the Truth. We can- 
not exhaust the evidence in support of our position. Accord- 
ing to Hesiod, when men of the Golden Age died and became 
demons, the change was viewed as an "honorable promotion." 
Rev. Charles Beecher, in his " Review of the Spiritual Mani- 
festations," published in 1853, quotes the words of Plato to 



1 82 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

show that, in the opinion of that illustrious philosopher, " when 
good men die they attain honor and become demons ; " also 
the testimony of Philo to prove that " soul and demon are dif- 
ferent names for the same thing." In this sense the word was 
used in the Greek Scriptures. Hence when we read that cer- 
tain persons were " possessed of devils," we are not necessarily 
to infer that they were under the dominion of evil spirits, since 
the shades of noble men, celestial demons, or (if we must fol- 
low the translators) very good devils, might exercise a con- 
trolling influence over mortals. 

It was the privilege of the clergy to " fall back upon the 
Biblical demonology " for a probable solution of the modern 
mysteries. The time had come when they felt obliged to do 
something ; and, because science could suggest nothing better, 
they have, alas, fallen back to perdition ! In the words of the 
eloquent Roman — spoken at a funeral — " What a fall was there, 
my countrymen ! " 

But will they be able to rest any more comfortably in the 
present fallen state by longer cherishing the falsehood that the 
Spirits are all unclean ? Have they such an unreasoning pref- 
erence for foul demons that they must have such to the utter 
exclusion of all others ? And must they continue to defame 
the characters of all the inhabitants of the Spirit-World of 
whose existence they have any positive knowledge ? If they 
are going to depend on demons to arm them against the sub- 
tle materialism which, in the name of science and positive 
philosophy, now threatens the interests of the Church, they 
ought at least to have the grace and magnanimity to refrain 
from bearing false witness against their spiritual neighbors. 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1 83 

Let them tell the whole truth about the demons, that their 
misguided followers may know there are some pure and wise 
Spirits still sent to this world on errands of angelic protection, 
of sweet fellowship and heavenly mercy, 

" When the dark Ethiop learns to change his skin ; 
When the fierce leopard takes away his spots ; 
When wolves turn shepherds, and protect the sheep ; 
When frosts grow kind, and kiss to life the flowers ; 
When tyrants fall in love with Liberty, 
Sectarian creeds will cease to stab the soul." * 

It is with profound regret that I am obliged, under this in- 
dictment, to convict Prof. Phelps of a want of fidelity to the 
facts, and to impartial testimony. If this is important in sec- 
ular affairs, it can not be less so in the treatment of those 
grave questions which relate to religion and the immortal re- 
alities of the life hereafter. And here I must cite the follow- 
ing passage from his letter in the Congregatiojzalist : 

'* That instructive faith in the supernatural, which the Bible feeds with 
dignity and purity, if denied such food, we might naturally expect to find 
rotting in some such putrescent heap as modern Spiritualism. " 

I accept the issue made by this learned theologian who 
brings his little taper to warm the sunshine, and to light the 
summer day. To determine with what degree of "dignity 
and purity " our " instinctive faith in the supernatural " is fed 
by the Bible, it will be necessary to look at that particular 
side of the subject which the Professor just now keeps in 



* These lines are from the spirit Of the author of the " Course of Time," 
whose theology, the reader will observe, has been radically reformed by 
his residence in the spiritual heavens. 



I84 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

shadow. To this end I will refer to several significant pas- 
sages in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. I will not, 
however, offend the refined moral sense of your readers by 
reciting the vile proposition of Lot in respect to his virgin 
daughters — made to the populace of Sodom while he yet en- 
tertained " two angels " at a feast. Though a believer in an- 
gelic visitors he was a very weak man, as appears from the 
further history of his life ; and the religious world should 
make haste to forget a bad example, which does not " feed 
the instinctive faith in the supernatural — with dignity and 
purity." * 

Among the ancient prophets — true and false — was Balaam, 
who, according to the account given in the twenty-second 
chapter of the book of Numbers, was instructed on a certain 
occasion to accompany the princes of Moab. The prophet 
may have had some private aim or object in view in obeying 
the Divine command, since the record represents that, not- 
withstanding he had been divinely directed to go, yet " God's 
anger was kindled because he went." This led to one of the 
most remarkable illustrations of Spirit Mediumship on record. 
Balaam, as it appears, rode on a beast, the common English 
name of which has become a synonym for obstinacy and stu- 
pidity. The prophet was brutal in his treatment of the beast ; 
and the angel of the Lord, using the dumb animal as both a 
seeing and speaking medium, sharply rebuked Balaam, and 
then reasoned the case with him in mild and persuasive He- 



* See the Biblical account in Genesis, chapter xix. , from which it would 
appear that the antiseptic properties in Lot's constitution were not suffi- 
ciently pronounced to enable him to share the fate of his wife. 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1 85 

brew. We may naturally presume that there was at least an 
appearance of awful gravity in the demeanor of the animal — 
this is characteristic of the class — and, as we cannot impeach 
the morals of the species, we may as well frankly admit that, 
in this case, the " instinctive faith in the supernatural " was 
fed "with dignity and purity." 

But there were cases in which the " dignity and purity " 
were not so clearly illustrated. Isaiah (chapter xix. 14), in 
referring to the calamities which were to come upon Egypt, 
says, " The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst 
thereof ; and they have caused Egypt to err in every work 
thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit." The 
same prophet (Isa. viii. 19-20) reproved the people of his day 
for running after certain " familiar spirits," who had nothing 
of consequence to communicate, and the class of "wizards 
that peep and that mutter." To " peep " may mean to cry 
like a chicken, while to " mutter " is to utter with inaudible 
or otherwise imperfect articulations. Such stupid pretenders 
to mystical lore and spiritual insight were of no possible ser- 
vice to the people, and hence it was unwise to seek after 
them. Every rational Spiritualist is somewhat disposed to 
believe in Isaiah, and we often have occasion to advise nov- 
ices not to waste much time with spirits and mediums who 
at their best can only " peep " like chickens and mutter some 
unintelligible jargon to no profit. 

As a further illustration of the alleged superior " dignity 
and purity " of the manner in which some of the Scripture 
writers minister to our "instinctive faith in the supernatural," 
I respectfully submit the following : 



1 86 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

"And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and 
fall at Ramothgilead ? And one said on this manner, and another said 
on that manner. And there came forth a spirit and stood before the 
Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, 
Wherewith ? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in 
the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, , 
and prevail also ; go forth and do so. Now, therefore, behold the Lord 
hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets." (I. Kings, 
xxii. 20-23). 

Let the reader observe that it is not the spirit of some wan- 
derer from this dim orb, deceived, benighted and lost ; nor a 
poor demon whose rudimental life was blackened and blasted 
by fatal hereditary predispositions and the world's scorn, who 
is made to sanction this iniquity ; but it is the Hebrew Jeho- 
vah, whom Christians worship as the Creator of the universe 
and the loving Father of the spirits of all flesh ! Had the 
commission to engage in this foul business of systematic lying 
for the questionable purpose of leading even a bad man to 
ruin, emanated from Spirits who use our modern mediums, 
the fact would have been cited by every evangelical minister 
in the country as evidence of the fathomless depravity of the 
whole system and the diabolical character of all its invisible 
agents. And does it follow of necessity that our " instinctive 
faith in the supernatural" must be fed in this way alone ? 
No ! There is no divine afflatus here, teaching celestial truths 
with " dignity and purity." It is no breath of God coming 
down out of heaven ; but rather a foul Euroclydon, sweep- 
ing up from the nether depths of fathomless perdition, filling 
our sphere with a moral miasm and blighting the morning- 
glories of this world. 

The phenomena illustrating the presence and the power of 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1 87 

Spirits were of frequent occurrence in the first century, and the 
constant references to the same in the New Testament clearly 
show that a large proportion of them were of a disorderly char- 
acter. One of the biographers of Jesus states that the Master 
was " led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of 
the devil." (Matt. iv. i.) Another says, "the spirit driveth 
him into the Wilderness." (Mark i. 12.) When he was in the 
region of 'Tyre and Sidon a Syrophenician Greek woman came 
to him in behalf of her daughter who " had an unclean spirit," 
and she " besought him that he would cast forth the devil out 
of her daughter." Jesus complied with her request. (Mark 
vii. 25, 26.) After his transfiguration he was one day sur- 
rounded by a great crowd, when one of the multitude said : 
" Master, I have brought my son which hath a dumb spirit, 
and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth "him, and he foam- 
eth and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away." This 
dumb spirit was cast out, the medium being thrown so vio- 
lently to the ground that he appeared to be dead. (Mark ix. 
17-26.) In the Synagogue at Capernaum "there was a man 
which had a spirit of an unclean devil," and he was very noisy. 
In the exorcism of this spirit the medium was prostrated but 
not injured. (Luke i v. 33-35.) Among the " women which 
had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities " was one " Mary 
called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils." (Luke 
viii. 2.) It is recorded that while Philip was preaching in 
Samaria, " unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of 
many." (Acts viii. 7.) When Paul and Silas were at Philippi, 
in Macedonia, they were met by " a certain damsel possessed 
with a spirit of divination, which brought her masters much 



1 88 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

gain by soothsaying " — fortune-telling under spirit influence. 
(Acts xvi. 16-18.) 

In closing this summary of the New Testament illustrations, 
a more complete description of a single example, as presented 
in Mark's record of the Gospel, will afford a clearer concep- 
tion of the more desperate phases of the spiritual phenomena 
of those times. Jesus had just crossed the sea of Galilee with 
his disciples and was in " the country of the Gadarenes." 

" And when he was come out of the ship immediately there met him 
out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling 
among the tombs ; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains ; be- 
cause that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains 
had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces ; neither 
could any man tame him. . . . But when he saw Jesus afar off, he 
ran and worshiped him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, ' What 
have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God ? I adjure 
thee by God, that thou torment me not.' For he said unto him, Come 
out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, ' What is thy 
name ?' And he answered, saying, ' My name is Legion, for we are many.' 
And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the 
country. 

Now there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. 
And all the devils besought him, saying, 'Send us into the swine, that 
we may enter into them.' And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And 
the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine : and the herd 
ran violently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thou- 
sand), and were choked in the sea." (Mark v. 2-13.) 

The critical reader will not omit to observe that these dis- 
orderly spirits, endowed with such preternatural powers for 
mischief, were most orthodox in faith according to the ap- 
proved standard of the modern Church. The spirit who 
spoke for the Legion declared with singular emphasis their 
faith in the divinity of Jesus ; at the same time among them 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1 89 

all there does not appear to have been one benighted soul 
who cared to hide the dismal aspects of a perverted nature 
and a wasted life. In view of all this, and much more of a 
similar character, it is still arrogantly assumed that our " in- 
stinctive faith in the supernatural " must derive all the means 
of its support from the Bible, to the exclusion of personal ex- 
perience and a living inspiration. The Church may as well 
understand that if all modern mysteries are to be explained 
without reference to another world, and the agency of spirit- 
ual beings in their production, then the Bible and the sacred 
books of all heathen nations must share the same fate.* 

I am. pleased to know that ordinary infidels are not so illog- 
ical as to reject what is really good and true for the reason 
that the treasure my be surrounded by grosser elements in 
which no one may discover intrinsic value. We accept the 
exquisite poetry of the Psalmist as cordially as we condemn 
the gross sensuality and villainy that blackened the character 
of the inspired author. We never quarrel with the poet's 
lyre, even when it is tuned to the unhappy strains of a peni- 
tent adulterer. The epistles of Paul are none the less instruc- 
tive and forcible because some of the best ones were written 



* Rev. Charles Beecher saw this twenty-seven years ago (April, 1853), 
when he submitted his ' ' Review of the Spiritual Manifestations " to the 
Congregational Association of New York and Brooklyn. The following 
brief extract will show how vividly the truth was impressed on his mind : 

" If a theory be adopted everywhere else but in the Bible, excluding 
spiritual intervention, in toto, and accounting for everything physically, 
then will the covers of the Bible prove but pasteboard barriers. Such a 
theory will sweep its way through the Bible and its authority ; its plenary 
inspiration will be annihilated." 



I9O THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

to Christians who made a Bacchanalian entertainment of the 
Lord's supper, getting drunk, eating and drinking damnation 
to themselves ; and — Paul being the witness — indulging in 
other crimes of so gross a nature that they " were not so much 
as named among the Gentiles." The impassioned eloquence 
of Peter was not less inspired because there were " dumb spir- 
its " in Judea. The conduct of the Good Samaritan was al- 
together Godlike, in spite of the heartlessness of the priest 
and the Levite, who in conjunction represented the interests 
of religion and ceremonies of the Temple-service. The life of 
Jesus of Nazareth was not less a transcendent revelation of 
moral excellence and spiritual beauty because one of his earli- 
est disciples delivered him into the hands of the enemies who 
led him to crucifixion. 

The time has come when the moral sense and intelligence 
of the age will hold its religious teachers to more rigid rules 
of consistency. We have reached the limit of the period when 
fooling with a serious subject is likely to be tolerated. If the 
Church is full of baptized infidels, who uphold the ancient 
historical supernaturalism(?) while they yet wait for science to 
explain all modern mysteries on the principles of physics, they 
may as well understand that we fully comprehend their equiv- 
ocal position and their shallow policy of evasion. They must 
either discard their religion, because through all the early his- 
tory of its development it was mixed up with disorderly mani- 
festations from Spirits, or they must cease to make such disor- 
derly phenomena a ground of objection to the just claims of 
Modern Spiritualism. This is the issue which must be met 
here and now. Our clerical opposers have grown old and gray 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. I9I 

in superserviceable efforts to assist the Lord by annihilating 
Spiritualism. Thus far the result only shows that 

' ' Folly in fools bears not so strong a note 
As folly in the wise when wit doth dote." 

If it were not a matter of daily observation, we should be 
amazed at the stupidity of the opposition. The stale objec- 
tion that the communications from Spirits are either utterly 
worthless or manifestly unimportant, is constantly repeated by 
people who do not appear to have heard of the " dumb spirits " 
of the New Testament. While insisting that the Spirits should 
always be able to give learned tests to ambitious scholars, like 
" the gift of tongues," and demanding withal more " dignity 
and purity " on the part of our mediums, they still neglect to 
tell the truth about them, while they pay their respects to Ba- 
laam's ass. If there are undeveloped spirits and mediums now 
whose words are without wisdom — who give us nothing new — 
so there were peeping and muttering wizards in the days of 
the prophets. The masters and students of popular divinity 
talk about the superior truth and dignity of the Biblical 
methods of feeding the love of the supernatural, while they 
keep out of sight the amazing fact that a single spirit, under 
a contract sanctioned by the Lord — without even the poor 
motive of self-interest in justification — agreed to become a very 
common liar in the mouth of an indefinite number of Jewish 
prophets. It is said that our modern mediums are mostly igno- 
rant and perverse, low in the scale of intellectual and moral 
development (this is not true) ; that they lack the fine quality 
of respectability, and the eclat of social recognition in the 



I9 2 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

gilded salons of our polite society. And yet the people who 
make these disparaging observations forget that the religion 
they have made fashionable had its ancient demoniacs from 
the catacombs of the Holy City ; its Christian Magdalenes 
who imbosomed a community of devils ; and the two thousand 
hogs, which — under the Christian dispensation — were devel- 
oped as mediums for unclean spirits in a single day ! How 
long, oh Lord, will our pious censors continue to " strain at 
a gnat and swallow a camel ? " 

Professor Phelps, with unequaled offensiveness of speech, 
characterizes Spiritualism as a "putrescent heap" and he pro- 
fesses to find our " instinctive faith in the supernatural " 
buried and " rotting " in this huge pile of infernal compost. 
His poor conception of its character, and this attempt to 
excite a feeling of disgust and hostility in the public mind, 
are so far beneath the dignity of the subject and the proper 
office of the religious teacher, that his words will have little 
weight with those who reach their conclusions by honest in- 
quiry and logical reasoning. Unfortunately there are many 
whose views are determined by their own ignorance and the 
force of popular prejudice ; but it is not a hopeful case which 
prompts a man of letters to make such an appeal in the name 
of Religion. 

I am happy to know that the attitude of Professor Phelps 
will neither prevent nor postpone the inevitable result. Ma- 
terial science will soon drive theology to the wall unless the 
Church makes a virtue of necessity by accepting Spiritualism. 
The doctors may speculate as they will ; this is the only alter- 
native. The essential facts and principles of Spiritualism are 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1 93 

not mere fancies ; they are not " profane, and old wives' fa- 
bles ; " they are not flimsy trappings and the cheap tinsel of 
theatrical exhibition. On the contrary, they are everywhere 
and irresistible — substantial as solid spheres, and will remain 
when the last mournful wreck of the old theologies goes to 
pieces and is swallowed up in the dead sea of the past. 

The poor time-servers, who balance truth and popularity, 
have nearly had their day ; they will finish their little work 
and cro awav to be forgotten ; but the truth of a demonstrated 
immortality will endure forever to inspire the hopes of all the 
living by pouring the golden splendors of the immortal Morn- 
ing over and through the portals of the grave ! In the com- 
ing century, Spiritualism will extend the boundaries of science 
into other worlds ; and the little child shall hold the un- 
broken chain of that sublime induction which, like the patri- 
arch's ladder, leads up from earth to heaven. Then will the 
truth appear in all the majesty of its power, and Modern 
Spiritualism be recognized as the great Reformation of all the 

ages. 

S. B. Brittax. 

The Lexington, 165 East 49TH St. 
New York, Jan. 1SS1. 



ANOTHER WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 

DAYLIGHT APPARITION OF A DEPARTED SPIRIT. 

FROM THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE OF FEBRUARY 6, l88l. 

Vision of a Prominent Merchant — Sensation on Brooklyn Heights— An unexpected 
Visitor from the Spirit-World — A Son returns to his Father's House in Daylight — 
Acknowledged Integrity of the Witness— Value of his Testimony— Spiritual Facts 
and Sensorial Phantoms — Positive Recognition — Shall we See and not Believe ? — 
Philosophy of Mental Phantasmagoria— Coming when not thought of by the Ob- 
server — The Apparition suddenly Vanishes — Not the result of Diseased Organic 
Action — Phenomenon irreconcilable with the Laws of Physics — The Fact due to 
Spiritual Presence and Agency— A Conviction that rests on Evidence of the 
Sense of Sight — A Christian Gentleman and shrewd Business Man — Truth re- 
gardless of Popularity. 

To the Editor of the Tribune : 

SIR — The account of the recent spiritual experiences of 
a prominent merchant, as given by a reporter in The 
Tribune of the 25th instant, adds the testimony of another 
honest witness to the demonstrative proofs, not only of the 
immortality of man, but also of the intimate relations of the 
visible and invisible spheres of human existence, and the pres- 
ent intercourse between the two states of being. It will grat- 
ify many readers of The Tribune to know that the integrity 
of the witness to this remarkable fact is beyond dispute. 
Scarcely less important is the evidence that the gentleman 
who saw his departed son " in broad daylight," one year after 
his funeral, is a competent observer, being " a shrewd, prac- 
tical business man," not credulous, but naturally inclined to 

194 



ANOTHER WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. I95 

skepticism. Thus admitted to possess all the requisite quali- 
fications of a close observer and reliable witness, is there any 
probability that he was deceived ? 

But you are pleased to suggest that the strength of the evi- 
dence " will be impaired, in the minds of many, by the fact 
that the gentleman is an earnest Spiritualist." If this obser- 
vation should be justified by the fact, the fault will not be in 
the witness, but "in the minds of many other men." I well 
remember the time when it was boldly maintained that an 
atheist could never be depended on to speak the truth ; that 
while Christians might be allowed to swear whenever they 
pleased, infidels should not be permitted to take the judicial 
oath and give testimony in the courts. If those pious people 
are not all dead yet, they have been greatly liberalized by the 
freedom of the press, and the more tolerant and benign spirit 
of the present age. The fact that our latest witness can dis- 
tinguish his own son from any and every other person in the 
world, and that he continues to accept the evidence of his 
senses, can by no means either invalidate his testimony or in 
any degree weaken the force of the evidence he has furnished. 
On the contrary, if it could be made to appear that, from any 
cause whatever, he either lacked the capacity to recognize his 
own child, or that he was so obstinate in his unbelief that he 
would not credit the evidence of his own senses, then, indeed, 
his testimony would be utterly worthless. 

What evidence is there that the form recognized as the 
merchant's son was a mere phantom, born of a disordered 
brain ? Accepting your reporter's account as the ground 
from which we reason, there is none whatever. All the forms 



I96 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

of the phantom creation spring from preexisting derangements 
of the organs of sensation, or from the abnormally exercised 
faculties of the mind. Sensations and thoughts assume what 
appear to be outstanding forms. But in the case under dis- 
cussion it was not an antecedent thought that made way for and 
produced the visible image, for no thought of his son was cog- 
nizable by the father. It will be observed that the image pre- 
sented to the vision takes precedence in time and determines 
the fashion of the thought it inspires. Had the mind of the 
witness been preoccupied at the time by the memory of his 
son, there might have been some possible ground for the in- 
ference that the image was merely subjective j in other words, 
an ideal conception taking, apparently, objective form by the 
preternatural force of cerebral action. In delirium tremens, 
fevers and other forms of disease accompanied by intense 
cerebration, abnormal sensations and false conceptions of the 
mind assume the semblance of reality in many grotesque and 
hideous shapes, which, by a reflex action of the sensories, be- 
come psycho-physiological pictures, and are to all appearance 
objective as the images formed in the camera. In order to 
attribute the merchant's vision to anything peculiar in the 
momentary condition of his mind, with any show of reason, it 
must be made to appear that the psychical fact was the visible 
transcript of an antecedent mental impression or conception. On 
this point the gentleman himself is the only person competent 
to testify, and he had no thought or consciousness of any 
such preoccupation of his mind. Moreover, if some imagin- 
ary latent impression in the mind will enable us to account 
for the sensorial image, why was it — when the mind of the 



ANOTHER WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. \Q)J 

observer had been still further preoccupied by what he was 
obliged to regard as the visible presence of his son — that the 
apparition mysteriously disappeared ? These facts show that 
when the father had no thought of his son, the latter suddenly 
appeared, and that when his thoughts were all centered on him, 
and the life-like image was before his vision, the apparition as 
suddenly vanished ! 

An honorable merchant, distinguished for his intelligence, 
undoubted sincerity, a disposition to " try the spirits " and 
"prove all things," and for a level head in his business re- 
lations, becomes a Spiritualist from witnessing phenomena 
which, in his judgment, can not be accounted for by refer- 
ence to the laws of physics, at the same time they admit of 
no explanation on any theory that rejects spiritual agency in 
their production. Evidently there is nothing in such a con- 
viction — the natural result of such evidence on an honest 
mind — which can either blunt his powers of perception or 
weaken his judgment. Neither the capacity to see clearly, 
nor the ability to exercise a logical discrimination, can have 
been injured by the occurrence of a phenomenon which calls 
these faculties into normal activity. No one pretends to 
think that human testimony is impaired because the witness 
is either an earnest Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episco- 
palian, or Catholic. Nor is such evidence of any greater 
value because of the religious professions and associations 
of the witnesses. As the world goes, there are many very 
pious people who are very poor witnesses. Would it not be 
a graceful thing on the part of the press to admit Spiritualists 
to an equality with other people ? Now that so many of the 



I98 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

scientists, philosophers, artists and principal literati of Europe 
accept the facts of Spiritualism, it is a little too late in the 
nineteenth century to discount the testimony of an honest 
merchant, who is also a Christian gentleman and clear-headed 
witness to the truth of Spiritualism, because he will neither 
reject the evidence of his senses, nor balance his personal 
popularity against the truth.* 

S. B. Brittan. 
The Lexington, ) 

New York, Jan. 26, 1881. ) 



* The timely letter from the Editor-at-Large to the Editor of the New 
York Tribune appeared in the last Sunday edition of that paper — date of 
the 6th instant — and through that medium will probably reach not much 
less than a quarter of a million of readers in every part of the world. 
The gentleman referred to — whose son recently appeared to him in his 
own house, in Brooklyn — if rumor may be credited, is a pillar in Mr. 
Beecher's church and one of the chief merchant princes of New York. 

Ed. Banner of Light. 



THE WATCHMAN ON SPIRITUALISM. 

FALLACY OF POPULAR OBJECTIONS EXPOSED. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, FEB. 12, l88l. 

Theory of Jugglery Abandoned — New Testament Demonology — Conquest of the 
World by the Spirits— Looking at Truth Through a Cloud— Has God Resigned 
his Scepter ? — False Views and Unreasonable Demands— Imperfection of all 
Human Instruments— A Stupid Devotion to what is Old— Blind Faith in Sacred 
Fictions— Closing the eyes to Present Facts — Reasoning with the Watchman- 
Will he Open his Shutters ? 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light ; 

IN The Watchman of Jan. 13th, I find an article which 
appears to carry with it the authority of the editorial 
sanction. The writer refers to some of the recently published 
books in illustration of the modern mysteries, especially to the 
" Scientific Basis of Spiritualism ; " Mr. Allen Putnam's spir- 
itual exposition of the Salem Witchcraft ; Joseph Cook's lec- 
tures ; the papers from the Leipzig professors ; also to the 
new edition of Dr. Samson's treatise, and Dr. Lorimer on 
Isms, both of which are said to ascribe the facts of Spiritual- 
ism to inherent forces of human nature not yet comprehended. 
The writer seems to think that the hypothesis which refers all 
the facts to deception and jugglery is scarcely admissible, 
and for the reason that we have " the testimony ofprofessional 
conjurers of eminence that the effects produced lie entirely outside 
the domain of their art to explain or to imitate" 

It is evident that the writer in The Watchman gives some- 

199 



200 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

thing like a quasi indorsement of the spiritual origin of the 
facts. He does not know what else to do with them ; and 
so, like Prof. Austin Phelps, D.D., of Andover, he falls back 
to the perdition of ungodly men in the Spirit-world, and there 
finds the only adequate explanation. It is " in the demon- 
ology of the New Testament." The following extract clearly 
indicates the anxious and unsettled state of the writer's mind 
on the subject of his article : 

" The greatest marvels of Spiritualism cannot be imitated on the stage 
by conjurers any longer. We are confronted with marvels which cannot 
be explained very well upon the hypothesis of sleight-of-hand. And we 
doubt very much that the explanation of Dr. Samson will be accepted as 
adequate. We find it hard to believe that we ourselves have power to 
produce such things as are reported by the German professors. At the 
same time the hypothesis of the Spiritualists is equally inadequate. The 
mental and moral imbecility of the messages is a fact which all admit, and 
which can hardly be reconciled with the supposition that these messages 
come from the dead whose names they bear. Almost always they are far 
beneath the intellectual and moral attainments of those who profess to 
sign them. The only adequate explanation that has been proposed, it 
seems to us, is to be found in the demonology of the New Testament. 
Grant that the so-called spirits of this day do not manifest all the marks 
of the demons with whom Christ and the Apostles were confronted, what 
difference does this make ? The policy of the kingdom of darkness may 
be expected to change in its details in eighteen centuries." 

It is here frankly admitted that the more important facts of 
Spiritualism cannot be imitated by conjurers ; that the sleight- 
of-hand hypothesis will not cover them ; that the theory of 
some mysterious force in the human body is uncertain and 
inadequate ; that it is difficult to credit the assumption that 
men in the flesh " have power to produce such things as are 
reported by the German professors." All this is candid and 
commendable. It is gratifying to witness this improvement 



THE WATCHMAN ON SPIRITUALISM. 201 

on the old spirit of dogmatic denial and unmeasured denun- 
ciation, which, for many years, characterized the religious op- 
position to Spiritualism. It shows that the millions who 

" Walk the earth 



Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep," 

are fast gaining power, not only over the elements and forces 
of matter, but over the human mind and heart. The agents 
employed in the spiritual advancement of this world are far 
too numerous and powerful to be resisted. With them it is 
not a mere question of logic ; they have the power to force 
conviction, even when and where it is most unwelcome. That 
the Spirits will continue to exercise their power in all lands, 
modifying the religious systems and political institutions of 
the people, we have no doubt ; and this great peaceful revo- 
lution is destined to proceed without stop or pause until they 
shall have made the conquest of the world ! 

And here I am reminded that there are many pious people 
who would be sad indeed if they shared this conviction. All 
who conscientiously believe that the unseen agents are all evil 
can only contemplate the possibility of such a triumph with a 
feeling of dismay. That those who seriously entertain this 
unwelcome view of the subject should show an unwillingness 
to accept the spiritual theory of the phenomena, is natural, 
and need occasion no surprise. They are startled when con- 
fronted by the facts, because they utterly demolish all their 
preconceived opinions and the speculations of a materialistic 
philosophy. When for the first time they are made to realize 
the truth that 
9* 



202 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

' ' Powers there are 
That touch each other to the quick, in modes 
Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive, 
No soul to dream of " 

they naturally yield to a feeling of profound concern. The 
timid mind is agitated by the questions which relate to its 
own security. If these invisible agents possess supra-mortal 
powers and immeasurable resources for mischief, what may 
they not do to mislead us to o.ir ruin ? If bolts and bars are 
useless, and closed doors no protection ; if they travel with 
the celerity of thought ; if they can paralyze our bodies by a 
touch ; and breathe into our very souls their infernal inspira- 
tion and the foul atmosphere of the pit ; what shall we do to 
escape from their presence, and how shall we be saved ? We 
are touched with a feeling of compassion for the people whose 
weak faith in God leads them to the terrible conclusion that 
he is turning over the affairs of the natural universe and of 
his moral government on earth into the hands of diabolical 
agents. We have no such painful apprehensions to disturb 
digestion and to give us the nightmare. Those poor souls 
whose fears are their counsellors will be relieved so soon 
as they shall have wiser grown by some spiritual experience 
of their own. 

The great stumbling block in the way of the writer in The 
Watchman seems to be in the alleged fact that the communi- 
cations are " almost always far beneath the intellectual and 
moral attainments" of the persons who are announced by 
name as the authors of the same. The writer appears to be 
lacking a proper comprehension of the subject, and precisely 
here is the foundation of his objection. Perhaps we may be 



THE WATCHMAN OX SPIRITUALISM. 203 

able to relieve his embarrassment. His first mistake consists 
in presuming that even* spirit must be required fcc ic his rs: 
as often as he presumes to break the silence. He must illus- 
trate his highest thought ; his even- effort must develop the 
most accomplished art ; and the greatest power of expression 
must be revealed even* time he speaks. It does not require a 
philosopher to perceive that this demand is both unnatural 
and unreasonable. We do not require the mundane author, 
however distinguished for his dignity and ability, :: distill 
the elements of his thought and speech when we meet him 
by the wayside and indulge in easy converse for five minutes. 
We never look to the caucus or a public reception for science 
and philosophy ; nor do we expect to extract the quintessence 
of all wisdom from one t-:a party. Some cf the guests may 
have genius and learning ; but the poet does not generally 
talk in hexameters, and the scientist never carries his appa- 
ratus in his dress-coat pocket. 

Now if the writer in TJu Watch r. . can rid himself of the 
false notion that a spirit is a creature essentially different from 
a man or woman ; if he can accept the fact that much the 
larger part of what is reported in the papers as coming from 
the invisible world consists :: familiar conversations between 
personal friends — spirits in and spirits out of the body ; and, 
especially, if he will exercise his reason ::: the subject^ he will 
be much less exacting in his demands. There are people so 
unreasonable as to expect even- spirit to flatter their pride by 
acting on every capricious suggestion they may be pleased to 
offer. We do not expect the chemist to put his whole labor- 
atory on a handcart and drive it round town to satisfy the 



204 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

people who have no faith in the laws of molecular attraction 
and chemical affinity. The man who studies the stars must 
not be expected to build his observatory in every man's gar- 
ret. The minister does not preach his best sermon in his 
neighbor's nursery ; and we may not require the scientist to 
demonstrate his last discovery at every railroad station. No 
more may we expect that every spirit will make a fool of him- 
self by getting up on very high stilts to gratify the empty am- 
bition of fools and pedants. 

There is another difficulty in the way of a perfectly literal 
transmission of thought from the Spirit-world. This is found 
in the fact that the communicating intelligence must always 
depend on the use of some mortal instrument, which, it must 
be admitted, is seldom entirely suited to his purpose. The 
one used may be the best the Spirit can command, and yet 
quite imperfect. Then it is often the case that the Spirit him- 
self, having had no preliminary discipline in this direction 
while on earth, finds it necessary to learn the elementary prin- 
ciples of psychological science before he can handle his mor- 
tal instruments with any great, success. Indeed, we have no 
more right to presume that he will show himself an expert on 
the first trial than that the man who has never had his hand 
on a telegraphic instrument can, at once and without mistake, 
send a message over the wires. No matter how much general * 
knowledge one may possess, he must have instruction and ex- 
perience in this business before he can become an adept and 
take rank with the most rapid and skillful operator. So far 
from forming a proper estimate of the difficulties in the way 
of a perfect intercommunication between the two spheres of 



THE WATCHMAN ON SPIRITUALISM. 205 

being, the writer in The Watchman does not so much as rec- 
ognize their possible existence. He has no way of accounting 
for errors and imperfections but by referring all such messages 
to wicked deinons or lying spirits. True, he no doubt accepts, 
with unquestioning faith, the whole Bible, just as it is, not as a 
composite utterance of finite spirits of the other world, but as 
the infallible word of God, in spite of the many direct contra- 
dictions it contains ; its numerous errors of science, philoso- 
phy and morals, and its twenty-seven thousand, more or less, 
mistranslations of the original text. 

So long as mankind, whether in this sphere or any other, 
are obliged to depend on human or' other instruments, as me- 
diums of intelligence or avenues of expression, so long will the. 
results be measured by the capacity of the means and instru- 
ments so employed. This principle must command the in- 
stant recognition of every philosophical mind. If any man 
is disposed to question the truth of our proposition, let him 
attempt to do any one of the impossible things here specified. 
Let him try to weave a fine fabric out of coarse materials ; or 
— if I may use the old but expressive proverb — " make a silk 
purse out of a sow's ear ; " produce perfect harmony on a 
musical instrument that is out of tune ; cut a marble statue, 
beautiful as Powers' Greek Slave, with a coal-chisel ; or imi- 
tate the gold and crimson hues of morning in a charcoal draw- 
ing. If he fails in these attempts, he may possibly compre- 
hend this absolute necessity for a complete adaptation of 
means and instruments to any important purpose which even 
the highest human intelligence may aim to accomplish. When 
the writer in The Watchman has fairly mastered this lesson in 



206 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

spiritual science, the main ground of his principal objection 
to Spiritualism will have vanished forever. 

The Watchman admits that conjurers can never solve the 
problems in the modern mysteries ; he has no idea " the expla- 
nation of Dr. Samson will be accepted ; " and he adds : " At 
the same time the hypothesis of the Spiritualists is equally in- 
adequate." This is a grave mistake. We only accept what the 
invisible powers say for themselves, and for the sufficient reason 
that they have demoiistrated their own claims. The hypothetical 
speculations are all the work of the opposition. They assume 
that the Spiritual Philosophy does not cover all the facts. On 
the contrary, it is the only theory that does this, and it alone 
treats the subject with becoming dignity. We can wait for 
others to take a wider view of the facts, and give them time 
to develop the acumen required to comprehend the sublime 
philosophy of Spiritualism. 

I have but few words to add in conclusion. If The Watch- 
man really believes that the communications from Spirits are 
" almost always far beneath the intellectual and moral attain- 
ments " of the reputed authors, it will give us pleasure to dis- 
prove this erroneous assumption whenever the Editor may 
signify a disposition to open his columns to the evidence. 

Yours faithfully, 

S. B. Brittan. 

The Lexington, 165 East 49TH Street, ) 
New York, fan. 29, 1881. ) 



SHAKING THE ANCIENT TOWERS. 

" WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT ? " 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, MARCH 5, l88l. 

A Baptist's View of the German Professors — A Watchman Blinded by Lightning- 
Important Admissions — Cold Comfort for the Enemy — Mushroom Speculations- 
Indignation of Saints — Policy of Priestcraft — Falling back on the Dark Ages — 
Hymn of the Battle — Verdict of Christian Investigators— Asleep on the Watch- 
Towers of Zion- -Humiliation of the Church— Fox Lake Representative— Reign 
of the Arch-fiend — Superstition yields to Science — Symbol of long Suffering- 
Crown of our Rejoicing. 

To the Editor of the B miner of Light : 

YOU may have observed that, since the date of my last 
letter, the secular and religious journals have been ex- 
tracting portions of the article that recently appeared in The 
Watchman of your city, and was reviewed in my communica- 
tion of the twelfth instant. The writer, in the interest of our 
Baptist contemporary, mentioned the fact that " the German 
professors have become vehement Spiritualists." Their un- 
equivocal testimony seemed to stagger his skepticism. Dazed 
by the vivid lightning with which the Spiritual Powers are 
rapidly illuminating the intellectual firmament of all Europe, 
he made admissions which are fatal to the claims of all heroic 
unbelievers. Acting under the strong impulse of the hour, 
he cast overboard the tools and stock in trade of the enemy — 
the worthless trumpery of those people who have put their 
trust in cunning tricksters, popular delusions, and general ras- 
cality, as furnishing a satisfactory solution of the modern mys- 

207 



208 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

teries. He finds it hard to believe the facts ; harder to get 
rid of them ; and hardest of all things to swallow the prepos- 
terous theories and shallow speculations which grow out of the 
decaying faith of the Church as naturally as toad-stools spring 
up from the mold of an old farmyard. 

The only consolation left to the writer in the Watchman is 
found in reflections upon " the mental and moral imbecility of 
the messages " from the other world. If there are Spirits from 
another world who will show themselves in spite of the Church, 
and fraternize with sinners in such a scandalous manner as to 
excite the pious indignation of the saints, it seems to afford 
him some satisfaction to know that the minds of such intrusive 
spirits are fast fading out in the after-life, and that their morals 
are so low as to warrant the conclusion that they must of ne- 
cessity be essentially damned already. The man who can de- 
rive consolation from such questionable sources may look for 
sunbeams in cucumbers and not be disappointed. 

Seeing that the scientific philosophers of Leipzig are com- 
pelled to accept the facts, and that the professional jugglers 
can not master the alphabet of Spiritualism, he begins to look 
seriously at the subject. His present attitude is clearly enough 
indicated in the following brief extract from the article in the 
Watchman : 

"We would discourage in the strongest manner the dabbling with' 
Spiritualism on the part of most people. But we think the time has cane 
when Christian men with the necessary training of mind should investigate 
it seriously, and reach some conclusion which will be accepted as the ver- 
dict rendered necessary by the facts." 

Here the old device of priestcraft crops out in the Protes- 
tant church. The writer thinks it will never do for the people 



SHAKING THE ANCIENT TOWERS. 2CX) 

generally to "be " dabbling with Spiritualism." He would keep 
the masses in ignorance of the facts which establish their im- 
mortality upon a scientific basis. He would bring back the 
darker ages when the common people accepted with unques- 
tioning faith the views and doctrines prescribed for them by 
their arbitrary masters. The world is too far advanced, and 
this feeble attempt to reinthrone the powers of darkness will 
not succeed. From an immortalized Spirit of the New Dis- 
pensation — speaking through the mediumship of Thomas L, 
Harris, in his stirring " Hymn of the Battle " — such men 
may learn the truth, apprehend what the Future will reveal, 
and perhaps be made to realize how futile are all such efforts 
to extinguish the light and arrest the progress of the world. 

HYMN OF THE BATTLE. 

" Can ye lengthen the hours of the dying Night, 

Or chain the wings of the Morning Light ? 

Can ye seal the springs of the Ocean Deep, 

Or bind the Tempests in silent sleep ? 

The Sun that rises, the Seas that flow, 

The Thunders of Heaven, all answer, ' Xo ! ' 

" Can ye drive young Spring from the blossomed Earth? 

The Earthquake still in its awful birth ? 

Will the hand on Time's dial backward flee, 

Or the pulse of the Universe pause for thee ? 

The shaken mountains, the flowers that blow, 
The pulse of the Universe, answer, ' Xo ! ' 

" Can ye burn a Truth in the Martyr's fire, 
Or chain a Thought in the dungeon dire ? 
Or stay the Soul, when it soars away 
In glorious life from the moldering clay ? 

The truth that liveth, the Thoughts that go, 
The Spirit ascending, all answer, 'No!' 



210 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

" Oh, Priest ! Oh, Despot ! your doom they speak, 

For God is mighty as ye are weak ; 

Your Night and your Winter from earth must roll ; 

Your chains shall melt from the limb and soul. 

Ye have wrought us wrong, ye have brought us woe — 
Shall ye triumph longer ? We answer, ' No ! ' 

"Ye have builded your temples with gems impearled, 
On the broken heart of a famished world ; 
Ye have crushed its heroes in desert graves ; 
Ye have made its children a race of slaves. 

O'er the Future Age shall the ruin go ? 

We gather against ye, and answer, ' No ! ' 

" Ye laugh in scorn from your shrines and towers, 
But weak are ye, for the Truth is ours ; 
In arms, in gold, and in pride ye move, 
But we are stronger — our Strength is Love. 

Slay Truth and Love with the Curse and Blow ? 

The beautiful Heavens ! they answer, ' No ! ' 

" The winter Night of the World is past ; 

The Day of Humanity dawns at last ; 

The veil is rent from the Soul's calm eyes, 

And Prophets and Heroes and Seers arise ; 

Their words and deeds like the thunders go : 
Can ye stifle their Voices ? They answer, ' No ! ' " 

But the writer we are reviewing thinks it is now time that 
"Christian men with the necessary training of mind should in- 
vestigate it seriously and reach some, conclusion" It is a little 
strange that it should be necessary at this late day to inform 
the writer in the Watchman that a million of trained Chris- 
tians have already investigated. They have been taking testi- 
mony for thirty years ; they have weighed the evidence ; they 
have arrived at a conclusion, and rendered their verdict while 



SHAKING THE ANCIENT TOWERS. 211 

this poor watchman on the walls of the old Zion must have 
been fast asleep. 

The enlightened minds connected with the secular press 
clearly perceive the fact that Spiritualism is advancing in all 
directions with a rapidity before unknown in the progress of 
religious ideas and philosophical views. Even now it gives 
promise of a speedy and universal triumph among all civilized 
nations. They also recognize the fact that the Church has 
lost its vitality ; that in its attitude toward Spiritualism it is 
humiliated before the world, and that its position is weak and 
defenseless. This may be illustrated by a paragraph from 
the Fox Lake ( Wis.) Representative. The editor prefixes the 
following note to portions of the Watchman s article : 

" The New Phase of Spiritualism. — The extracts which we copy 
from an article in the Watchman, a leading Baptist paper of Boston, are 
significant as evidencing the wonderful progress toward general recogni- 
tion which Spiritualism is making in the world. Ten years ago, it is 
safe to say, the Watchman would not have dared to publish such an arti- 
cle, even though easing its conscience, as by implication it does now, by 
attributing the phenomena to the Devil bugaboo." 

The writer of the above paragraph comprehends the situa- 
tion. The truth is, since the press took the place of the pul- 
pit as the chief agent in forming public opinion, the aforesaid 
" bugaboo" has been rapidly losing his influence over the 
human mind, while common sense, popular science, and spir- 
itual philosophy have been coming to the front. At last the 
old theological scare-crows have lost their power, and can no 
longer, be depended on to frighten the children. 

Thus ends the reign of the Arch-fiend of darkness. At 
last the head of the old Serpent is bruised, and hissing basi- 



212 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

lisks of Error crawl to their dens to die. Man's slavish fears 
of angry gods and death's unnatural terrors all depart. Cruel 
superstitions and painful rites, barbarous laws and all imagi- 
nary " goblins damned " — a foul brood hatched in the hell of 
ignorance and nursed by pious lunatics — all vanish under the 
retreating shadows of the old Night. We exchange the sym- 
bol of the world's crucifixion for the crown of our rejoicing ! 
Earth is redeemed from the bitter agony of her great sorrows, 
and the morning stars sing together. Science comes to illus- 
trate Truth and to illuminate the World, while the old teach- 
ers — wrapped in threadbare mantles — steal through twilight 
shadows to their cpen graves. 

" Tradition, like the Moon 
Waning before the splendors of the morrow, 
Yet shining with wan light o'er crypt and tomb ; 
In whose pale ray serenest night-flowers bloom, 
In whose dim luster living men repose ; 
Gilder of ruins, though dark Evil's gloom 
Casting reflected beams, thine eye-lids close ; 
The Sun his golden veil above thy setting throws." 



S. B. Brittan. 



The Lexington, 165 E. 49TH St. 
New York, Feb. 22 



T., ) 

I88l. ) 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 

DR. BRITTAN REVIEWS REV. DR. BOSTWICK HAWLEY. 

FROM THE SARATOGA (N. Y.) EAGLE, FEB. 26, 1881. 

Dr. Hawley on Spiritualism — Great Learning and Little Logic— Motion without Prog- 
ress — The Doctor's Faith in Solomon — Opposition to Liberalism in Religion — 
Quoting from the Afiocatastasis — Airing the Greek and Latin Classics — Ancient 
Sibyls and Priestesses — Death of the Old — The Paid Mourners — Paganism and 
Christianity— Polytheism and Spiritualism— Plurality of Gods reduced to a Divin- 
ity of Three Persons — Truth the only Authority — Careful Review of the Scrip- 
ture Argument— The Signs do not follow the Clergy — Weighed and found Want- 
ing — Spiritualism of the New Testament — Correspondence with the Spirit-World 
— One Hundred Thousand Letters Answered through one Medium — Heaven and 
Hell within Speaking Distance— Discussion between Abraham and Dives— Shall 
we insult the Angelic Visitors ?— Blindness of Theological Dogmatism— Shame- 
less and unnatural Cruelty — The Living taught to Dishonor their Immortal 
Kindred, Spurn their Loved Ones and Defame the Angels of Mercy — Crisis in 
the History of the Church — The Sacrilege of the Priesthood. 

" He that is first in his own cause seemeth just ; but his neighbor 
cometh and searcheth him." — Solomon. 

To the Editor of the Saratoga Eagle ; 

IN the Eagle of the 8th ultimo I find an elaborate paper 
from Rev. Bostwick Hawley, D.D., bearing the some- 
what ambiguous title of " Oscillations of Human Opinion." 
These terms rather conceal than suggest the general drift of 
thought and the main purpose of the writer. However, the 
reader of only ordinary intelligence will soon discover that the 
author's object in the preparation of his essay was to discredit 
the just claims of Spiritualism. How signally he failed to ac- 
complish this object will more clearly appear hereafter. 

213 



214 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

The introductory portions of Dr. Hawley's article consist of 
general observations on the idle vagaries of benighted and dis- 
ordered minds ; the speculations of heathen philosophers and 
poets ; the " loose theorists " in science, philosophy and relig- 
ion ; those unsettled souls who " swing forward into the regions 
of Christian emotion," wherever that country may be ; and the 
mere peddlers of " pseudo-scientific and semi-religious novel- 
ties." In all this the attentive reader may perhaps discover 
the dim outlines of a single idea struggling for evolution. This 
one imperfect conception of the mind, so obscurely revealed in 
the first part of the paper under review may be thus clearly 
expressed : This human world — all the elements of feeling, 
thought, purpose and action, forever move in cycles and epi- 
cycles — which the learned Doctor does not attempt to measure 
or otherwise define — and we are really making no progress to- 
ward the realization of a higher destiny for man. The writer 
appears to recognize the fact that in religion, not less than in 
the profane philosophies of this world, "there is scarcely a 
vagary or an error, however absurd, but has had its adher- 
ents." Through all this commingling and agitation of incon- 
gruous elements, he discovers no upward tendency or ascend- 
ing spiral motion by which lower natures may hope to go up 
higher. He quotes the words of the ancient wise (?) man to 
prove that there is no progress in human affairs. 

Where is the Infinite Intelligence and the Fathomless Love ? 
Did God improvise the creation merely for his own amuse- 
ment ? According to Solomon and Dr. Hawley he manages 
to keep the vast machinery of the universe in perpetual mo- 
tion, but really to no practical purpose. If any important end 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES OX TRIAL. 21 5 

was contemplated in the divine economy of the creation, they 
as yet perceive no specific adaptation of means to that pur- 
pose, nor do they discover that any progress is being made in 
that direction. Solomon has probably changed his mind on 
this subject before now, but we have not heard from him, and 
cannot, therefore, say this on any authority. They give us no 
promise that any great and beneficent purpose, commensurate 
with our necessities and our aspirations, will ever be realized. 
On the contrary, they belittle the God they worship, by rep- 
resenting him as going round and round on the same level 
like one in a tread-mill, traveling forever on the periphery of 
a horizontal wheel — moving without advancing and ever com- 
ing back to or finding himself at the starting point. This is a 
poor automatical conception of the divine nature and govern- 
ment. It is true that Dr. Hawley disclaims a strictly literal 
construction of Solomon's declaration ; still he is pleased to 
illustrate his general idea by quoting his words as follows : 
" The thins; that hath been is that which shall be : and that 
which is done is that which shall be done ; and there is no 
new thins; under the sun." * 



* In presuming that there is no progress in this world ; that the Su- 
preme Mind really stands still forever, it appears that Solomon finds ready 
indorsers of his views among eminent Christian divines. They have bap- 
tized the dead body of his materialism in the name of Jesus. We confront 
those lifeless remains with the living inspiration of the German poet, 
Goethe, who makes a great advance toward the absolute truth when he 
says : "Nature is eternally producing new forms; that which is, never 
was before, and what once was, never returns. She is the only artist ; 
bringing forth the most striking contrasts from the simplest materials, 
and leading up to the greatest perfection. She changes herself eternally, 
and with her there is no standing still." 



2l6 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

It will be observed that while your honored contributor 
cordially accepts the authority of Solomon with an undefined 
qualification of the meaning of his language, we are made to 
understand that he has no respect whatever for liberal Chris- 
tianity. This application of such a qualifying term as liberal 
seems to imply the possibility of progress in the Christian re- 
ligion, and he cannot entertain such an idea and at the same 
time preserve a proper respect for King Solomon. He uses 
terms of animadversion when he says that "What is called 
'liberal Christianity,' 'the new theology,' 'new ethics,' is only 
a restatement of an effete philosophy in Christian forms of 
expression." Thus at his word we are shut up to the unpleas- 
ant conclusion that Dr. Hawley's religion and theology are of 
the illiberal stamp. True liberality implies the largeness of 
conception, the expansion of mind, and the beneficence of 
purpose, which ennoble all feeling, thought, and action ; but 
these great elements do not enter into this writer's conception 
of the nature and mission of his religion. To this acknowl- 
edged lack of the liberal element in his Christianity we may, 
therefore, ascribe whatever of unfairness, dogmatism, and big- 
otry may be found to characterize the gentleman's treatment 
of Spiritualism. 

Not only the one idea already noticed as foreshadowed in 
Dr. Hawley's disquisition, but all the more important materials 
employed in the same, are derived from the " Apocatastasis" 
a work which really seems to have been composed for the 
purpose of airing the author's learning. We took an early 
opportunity, many years ago, to become acquainted with the 
contents of that book. It does not appear to have been 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 21? 

written with any serious purpose to disprove the facts and 
philosophy of Spiritualism. The author records many well 
authenticated illustrations of spiritual intercourse, chiefly de- 
rived from the Greek and Latin classics, without making so 
much as the feeblest attempt to dispute either their actual 
occurrence or their spiritual origin. Two features especially 
characterize this work : a pedantic display of the author's 
classical acquirements, and his utter inability to make any 
logical use of his abundant materials. If his book was ever 
intended to demolish the honest claims of Spiritualism, the 
author's failure is signal and complete. It has probably never 
disturbed the living faith of one soul, nor so much as ruffled 
the plumage of the dove which symbolizes the beautiful relig- 
ion of the Spirits. With an honest desire to preserve the dig- 
nity of the profession — of which the writer was once a member 
— we must respectfully inform our clerical critic that he is 
working that battery at too long range, and without once seeing 
the mark ! 

Let us look at the peculiar method by which Dr. Hawley 
seeks to discredit the facts and principles of Spiritualism. He 
refers to the philosophers of the Pythagorean and Platonic 
schools in ancient Greece, and tells so much truth about 
ancient Spiritualism as to quite demolish the disjointed and 
slender fabric of his argument against the Modern Manifesta- 
tions. The following passages will illustrate the manner of 
his treatment, in which he follows the example of the learned 
author of Apocatastasis. That book is the evangelical maga- 
zine and clerical armory from which he draws the weapons of 
his warfare against the Spirits. But we proposed to illuminate 
10 



2l8 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

the subject by some extracts from the essay, and the passages 
selected here follow: 

" It was then the almost universal opinion of the populace that ' the 
souls of the dead had much power and influence in human affairs, and 
that they could communicate with the living in various ways.' Their 
household divinities, which were the spirits of their dead ancestors, pre- 
sided, as they thought, over the fortunes of the family, and could be con- 
sulted in cases of doubt or difficulty. In Egypt, as now in China, all 
sorts of spirits were evoked, and consulted at the pleasure of the ques- 
tioner. . . . It is paganism revived. It is an outgrowth of polythe- 
ism, against which the central thought of both Hebraism and Christianity 
direct themselves. Even ' Plato the divine,' as he was called because of 
some advanced ideas held by him in reference to the unity, spirituality 
and personality of God, in opposition to the atheism of the few and the 
polytheism of the many, taught that the daemons {daimones) inhabit the 
air, are always near us, and know our thoughts — sentiments which he and 
Socrates gathered from the Jews who resided in Grecian cities." 

Still drawing on the author of Apocatastasis at sight, he 
quotes from Pliny to show how eager the scholarly Greeks 
were to accept the facts of Spiritualism. He reminds us that 
" the Sibyls were professional mediums ; " so also were the 
Priestesses in the temples of the ancient oracles, and that 
"they were consulted by imperial personages on the great 
questions of governmental policy." He observes that some 
of the mediums were clairvoyants, others were inspirational 
speakers ; some were accustomed to write, and in many the 
bodily organs — subject to the action of the will — were con- 
trolled. In this connection he offers Tacitus as a witness ; 
cites the testimony of Hermes to show that departed " souls 
or daemons were caused to visibly enter images," and Pesellus 
to prove that " celestial fire was made to appear, images to 
laugh, and lamps to spontaneously burn." 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 2IO, 

Now, if we have sense enough to comprehend the import of 
all this, it is so much unimpeachable testimony to the truth of 
Spiritualism. The Doctor's witnesses are chiefly selected 
from the most enlightened and renowned people among all 
the ancient nationalities. The earlier Greek philosophers, 
poets, orators, historians and artists inspire mankind to-day. 
Though dead, in the apprehension of the sensuous world, their 
influence is still felt in every walk of life. Living or dead, 
the Greeks have done more to develop the aesthetic sense 
among the most advanced nations, and to promote our highest 
culture, than any other people, ancient or modern. I thank 
the Doctor for the recitation of the evidence of his witnesses. 
It is well suited to my purpose. Knowing how vain and inef- 
fectual the effort must be, he makes no attempt to impeach 
their testimony. He makes no bold denial of the facts, nor 
does he seriously question their relation to spiritual causes. 
Spiritualism has no controversy with the witnesses to its truth. 
I am not here to dispute one word of the clear record of 
authentic history; but I come to admonish the gentleman 
that, having admitted this testimony, he can neither set it 
aside by supercilious indifference nor a pious ejaculation ! 

Dr. Hawley does not qualify his affirmation that Liberal 
Christianity is at best only the resurrection of a wasted body, 
or, to use his own words, it is the " re-statement of an effete 
philosophy "in a frail Christian disguise ; while Spiritualism 
is boldly declared to be "Paganism revived." On the con- 
trary, a Christianity that is not liberal is wholly unsuited to 
the spirit of the present age ; and the future, instead of at- 
tempting to galvanize the lifeless forms of past ages into an 



220 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

unnatural semblance of real life, will only see that the dead 
are decently buried. There are solemn people who always 
grieve over the death of the Old — hired mourners at such 
funerals — in whose minds every new birth in the realm of 
ideas is a revelation of diabolical mischief. Such souls must 
be allowed to afflict themselves, if they will, while we discover 
in the dying forms of stereotyped thought and the popular 
faith, the " shadows of coming events," and the postulates, which 
prophesy of the New Creation, wherein Truth shall be king 
and Righteousness be magnified among men. 

But how does the author of the le Oscillations of Human 
Opinion " proceed to prove that Spiritualism is " Paganism 
revived ? " Why, he shows us that the ancient nations, in- 
cluding their sages and philosophers — the chief lights which 
rendered their civilization glorious — believed in the existence 
of Spirits ; in their power over the material elements and 
forces of this world ; and that they exercised a constant and 
powerful influence in human affairs. Because they believed 
all this he presumes there is ground for a railing accusa- 
tion against all modern believers, and hence the public is in- 
formed that Spiritualism is only the reanimation of Paganism. 
But this belief in Spirits was never confined to the ancient 
Greeks and Romans, nor to Paganism. It has been enter- 
tained by every nation and people under the sun, and will 
never cease to be the vital principle in all systems of religion. 

Now if we hold Dr. Hawley to the logical deductions from 
his premises, he will probably find that he is proving too much 
to suit the average taste of the Christian ministry. Let us 
furnish an example of his own method of reasoning. The 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 221 

ethics of the illustrious Chinese philosopher, Confucius, em- 
braced a clear affirmation of the Golden Rule. Pythagoras — 
the great philosophical seer of Samos — instructed his disciples 
to f o?' give their enemies. Iamblichus regarded the soul of Py- 
thagoras as a revelation from the God of Wisdom ; in other 
words, as a special incarnation of the Supreme Divinity ! Hence 
a poet sings of him — 

" Pythias, fairest of the Samian race, 
Bore from the embraces of the God of day 
Renowned Pythagoras. " 

It will never be denied that the Golden Rule and the in- 
struction to forgive our enemies, embrace the divinest princi- 
ples ever inculcated by Jesus of Nazareth. But as these great 
lessons of divine wisdom were taught by Pagan philosophers, 
respectively five and six hundred years before Christ, what 
follows as the logical sequence ? The reader will please take 
notice, that this is precisely what follows according to our critic s 
method of reasoning : The Sermon on the Mount was of heathen 
extractio?i, and the Doctor s Christianity, having the same origin, 
is o?ily " Paganism revived." 

In the concluding part of his essay Dr. Hawley cites many 
passages of .Scripture — all' of which are familiar to every intel- 
ligent Spiritualist — to show us that the Bible is opposed to 
our doctrine and practice, and that it is a very wicked thing 
to have social and intellectual intercourse with Spirits of the 
other world. And here the learned gentleman unconsciously 
comes over to aid us by so much biblical knowledge as he has 
acquired. But slinging texts at the Spiritualists — without dis- 
crimination as to their import — is not likely to convince any 



222 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

one that he is in error. Not one of the Doctor's quotations 
contains anything to disprove the real facts and fundamental 
principles of Spiritualism. Quite the contrary ; each passage 
cited assumes that the intercommunication between the two 
worlds is a fixed fact that no biblicist or other man with a 
personal experience may dispute. If the spirits are not insen- 
sible to the ludicrous aspects of the case, they must be amused 
at this illustration of The Apocatastasis — Progress Backward — 
in which a venerable Doctor of Divinity labors to prove the 
truth it is his purpose to deny. 

I hardly need add anything further to disprove the assump- 
tion that Spiritualism " is an outgrowth of polytheism." It is 
impossible to trace any likeness of one to the other, and there 
is no historical or other evidence to support such a statement. 
Polytheism is the recognition and worship of a plurality of gods. 
The writer has a large acquaintance among Spiritualists, but 
does not happen to know of a single person among the thou- 
sands who is disposed to recognize more than one God. There 
are, however, several professed believers in the facts of spirit- 
ual intercourse who have no God at all. They had none be- 
fore they witnessed the facts of Spiritualism, and they still 
hold on with unyielding pertinacity to their cheerless Athe- 
ism.* But there does appear to be a trace of the polytheistic 
faith and worship of the ancients in the creeds of orthodox 



* Among the atheistical Spiritualists will be found, here and there, one 
of the leaders of radical thought. Among the more prominent persons of 
this class is Mr. Hudson Tuttle, who thus expresses his conviction : 
" Spiritualism should be the grand eclecticism which takes from all the 
best, the true, and carves over the portals of its temple the name of no 
worshiped God or priestly system." 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 223 

Christianity, which demand our equal reverence of three several 
persons, each of whom is said to possess all the attributes of the 
Supreine Divinity. 

Very naturally this brings us to consider the reason why 
several Hebrew writers condemned the intercourse with the 
Spirit-world as it was practiced by the early heathen nations. 
It was not the mere recognition of the presence of Spirits by 
the people of this world, or the simple interchange of thought 
between human beings in different spheres of existence — as 
this would always happen under suitable conditions — which 
formed the ground and furnished the occasion for denouncing 
the practice. // was for the reason that finite Spirits of men, 
and even imagi?iary beings, were — in the popular conception — ele- 
vated to the rank of gods and worshiped as divine authorities by 
the superstitious multitudes. The polytheistic features and as- 
pects of the system rendered that intercourse pernicious ; and 
it' was this recognition of all these inferior divinities, to the 
neglect of the Hebrew Jehovah, that called down the stern de- 
nunciations of Moses and the Prophets. Among all men the 
Spiritualists would be the last religious body in the world to 
entertain the idea of reviving the polytheistic faith and wor- 
ship of the ancient pagan nations. They are not hero-wor- 
shipers. They have not the excessive reverence which would 
render the apotheosis of any man a possibility in their history. 
As a people they have no agency in the business of fashioning 
and multiplying gods, either for themselves or others ; and 
those who have made much progress accept no authority, visible or 
invisible, but Truth demonstrated. 

Referring to the demons of the first century, Dr. Hawley 



224 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

tells us that " Instead of consulting them, Christ and his Apostles 
cast them out." But I must be allowed to remind the learned 
doctor that, according to the record — which is said to be in- 
fallibly true — Jesus did not hesitate to converse one day with 
a legion of devils through their spokesman ; and what is more, 
he graciously granted their petition that they might be allowed 
to enter into " a great herd of swine feeding " in " the country 
of the Gadarenes." (See Mark v. 2-13.) Now, if it was a 
wicked abomination in the sight of God to have intercourse 
with any Spirits of another world, why did Jesus allow him- 
self to be interviewed by the chief speaker of a band of Spirits 
of so low a character that they found congenial mediums in 
the swine ? 

But if Jesus and his early Apostles made it their special 
business to cast out the evil spirits, what are their successors in 
the sacred office about that they neglect to follow the example 
of their Master and his primitive ministers ? They profess *to 
be authorized to preach under the same apostolic commission, 
which may be found in St. Mark's record of the Gospel, chap- 
ter xvi. The evangelist clearly defines the valid evidence 
of true discipleship, and the appropriate seals for official con- 
firmation of the claims of a living minister of Jesus. The 
following extract from the original commission, the sanction 
of which is claimed by the Christian clergy of the present day, 
is as significant in fact as it is apparently meaningless in their 
apprehension of its import : 

"And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall 
they cast out demons ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take 
up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them ; 
they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover." 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 225 

It will be observed that the very first evidence required of a 
preacher of the Gospel, that he was duly called to the work of 
the ministry, was his ability to cast out devils. Some one, at 
least, of the signs enumerated was expected to follow as an 
authentication of his claims. As the " spiritual gifts " be- 
stowed on the early believers were not in all cases the same, 
but as now were varied according to the innate capacity of 
the individual and the peculiar circumstances and require- 
ments of the case, we may not insist on the trial by poison^ 
since it may not be the specific function of any minister of 
our acquaintance to overcome the action of deleterious drugs. 
But every true Christian ambassador should submit his cre- 
dentials, and he should, at least, be able to exhibit the power 
in some one of its several aspects. Those who can not — it 
must be obvious from the letter and the spirit of the commis- 
sion itself — must be classed a7?iong the unbelievers ; and it should 
henceforth be no heresy to question the validity of their ap- 
pointment until the signs are forthcoming. But do the signs 
follow as the only confirmation of the claims of the Christian 
clergy ? No ; seldom or never. If there are any disorderly 
Spirits to be cast out in these days, the friends of the demo- 
niac straightway send for a spiritual doctor, and for the reason 
that the Christian clergy by great occasions tried are found to 
be impotent. They believe in the regular professional reme- 
dies for demoniacs — chloroform and a straight-jacket / If we 
conclude to be generous and wait for these successors of the 
Apostles to vindicate their commission in the appointed way, 
some time will probably elapse before we shall be required to 
indorse their claims. 



226 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

The assumption that Jesus and his prime ministers ever dis- 
approved of the acquisition of spiritual knowledge, and that 
they condemned all intercourse with the Spirit-world, is with- 
out the smallest foundation in the New Testament. As the 
Christian ministers profess to be especially interested in the 
question, " What saith the Scriptures ?" I propose to answer 
this inquiry by reading a few passages from their own " infal- 
lible (?) revelation." At the annunciation it is stated that 
a the angel Gabriel was sent" to Mary, his mother, to prepare 
her mind for the impending event. (Luke i. 26-31.) Again 
the angelic messenger appeared at his birth : " And suddenly 
there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host 
praising God." (Luke ii. 9-13.) We have already cited an 
instance in which Jesus held a conference with one of the 
devils he had cast out, and condescended to gratify the desire 
of the " unclean spirit," who said, " My name is Legion." At 
his transfiguration the spirits of " Moses and Elias " came 
visibly and conversed with him in the presence of three mor- 
tal witnesses — Peter, James and John. During the agony in 
the garden of Gethsemane, it is recorded, " There appeared 
an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him." (Luke 
xvii. 43.) When the multitude came out to arrest Jesus at 
the instigation of Judas, the Master informed the disciple who 
smote a servant of the high priest, that he could at will sum- 
mon " more than twelve legions of angels," and that they 
would come to his assistance should he invoke their presence. 
(Matt. xxvi. 53.) According to the evangelical account, not 
merely " the veil of the temple was rent in twain " at the 
crucifixion, but " the saints which slept arose, and came out 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 227 

of the graves after the resurrection, and went into the holy 
city and appeared unto many." (Matt, xxvii. 51-53.) Nor 
is this all ; other spiritual phenomena are on record as having 
occurred at his sepulchre, including the moving of a large 
ponderable body by the agency of a Spirit. It is affirmed 
that " The Angel of the Lord descended from heaven and 
came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it. His counte- 
nance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow." 
(Matt, xxviii. 2-3.) 

If we can credit the biographers of Jesus every important 
event in his career, from the conception to the crucifixion, 
was illustrated by some revelation of spiritual presence and 
power. His remarkable natural inspiration and the simple elo- 
quence which was the highest reason set on fire by love ; his 
ability to see objects outside of the field of ordinary observa- 
tion and beyond the utmost limit of earthly vision ; the power 
to discern what was in the minds and hearts of men ; his mas- 
terly influence over disorderly spirits, and the healing efficacy 
of his touch, were all illustrative facts which belong to Spirit- 
ualism. The spirit at the annunciation, said to have been 
Gabriel ; the angel at Bethlehem and the heavenly host that 
celebrated the nativity ; the devil who is said to have placed 
Jesus " on a pinnacle of the temple ; " the dove that de- 
scended at the baptism ; the Master's colloquy with the legion 
through their own representative speaker ; the appearance of 
Moses and Elias ; the angel in the garden ; the " more than 
twelve legions of angels " ready to respond to the call of Jesus ; 
every instance in which a spirit was cast out of a mortal ; 
every case of healing under his hand ; the rending of " the 



228 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

veil of the temple " and the rocks ; the angel rolling the stone 
from the door of the sepulcher, and the visible return of de- 
parted saints to Jerusalem — these, if they ever occurred, are 
all so many facts in Spiritualism — personal experiences in the 
life of a man whose very existence seems to have been such a 
spiritual phenomenon that he was long since deified by his dis- 
ciples. That a part of his mysterious visitors were spirits of 
men is plainly stated. Such, at least, were Moses and Elias, 
and the saints who, though dead according to the mortuary 
record, were still alive in fact and visibly walked the streets of 
the Holy City. 

Now, strange as it may seem, after the preaching of a relig- 
ion supported by these facts, and with such a founder, for 
nearly nineteen centuries, we are summoned to a recitation of 
these phenomena in his history and a vindication of the truth 
by the repeated assaults of professed ministers of Jesus who 
have never yet been able to emphasize their claims to a true 
discipleship by a single evidence of their spiritual power. On 
the contrary, they insist that the living demonstrations of the 
Spirit-world all died out with the early Apostles ; and this, too, 
against the facts of authentic history, which prove that the 
original " spiritual gifts " remained in the primitive Church 
for more than three hundred years, and that they have often 
reappeared in all ages and countries, in and out of the eccle- 
siastical state. Alas for the Church when the doctors of its 
sickly divinity — giving no signs of spiritual life — are as dead 
men, and the people are taught to regard the facts of Spirit- 
ualism as a stench in the nostrils of the saints and an abomi- 
nation in the sight of God ! 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 229 

So much respecting the Master. That his early ministers 
were all Spiritualists and mediums is rendered evident by so 
much as we have of their history in the book entitled " The 
Acts of the Apostles." Peter was inspired, and while preach- 
ing his impressive sermon on the day of Pentecost a spiritual 
inspiration was also imparted to the multitude, and then the 
spiritual afflatus came with a sound resembling " a rushing 
mighty wind ; " and there followed tongues of fire, the speak- 
ing of many mediums in languages they had never learned, 
and the conversion of thousands. Peter was likewise a trance 
medium, and subject to visions. While at Joppa he went up 
one morning on the house-top to pray ; there he fell into a 
trance, and had a significant vision which greatly liberalized 
his views and enlarged the scope of his conception of the gos- 
pel of Jesus. Peter and John were such mediums that the 
spirits were able to move the bolts and bars of prison doors, 
and let them out. Saul of Tarsus — the St. Paul of the New 
Testament — was knocked down while on his way to Damas- 
cus by a good spirit, purporting to be the Crucified. The proud 
Pharisee saw at midday a great light that paled the sun, and 
heard himself addressed by an audible voice, speaking out of 
the illuminated air, and in the Hebrew tongue. So powerful 
was the shock to the nervous system that Saul was blind for 
three days, while his interior vision was being opened that he 
might discern spiritual things. When Paul and Silas were in- 
carcerated at Philippi, the spirits shook the foundations of the 
prison and frightened the jailer; "and immediately all the 
doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed." (Acts 
xvi. 25-30.) Of such a nature were the illustrations of in- 



230 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

visible intelligence in the first century, by which the minds 
of men were inspired, and ponderable bodies moved with irre- 
sistible power. 

In John the Revelator we recognize a trance medium of a 
remarkable type. He was in the solitude of one of the Gre- 
cian islands when " suddenly " he was borne away in the spirit, 
and the grand succession of the Apocalyptical Visions passed 
in review before him. The whole of this last book o f the sa- 
cred canon consists of significant allegorical pictures f resented 
to the vision of a medium while he was entranced by the Spirit 
of some one of the elder prophets. To a doctor of divinity I feel 
bound to submit the authority on which this is claimed. Here 
it is, and it shows how easily John — from excessive reverence 
and deficient reason — might have been led into the polytheis- 
tic worship of the ancient heathen nations : " And I, John, 
saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard 
and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel 
which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See 
thou do it not, for I ai7i thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren 
the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book : 
Worship God" (Rev. xxii. 8, 9.) 

These are some of the many facts, derived from Christian 
sources, which essentially belong to Spiritualism. Similar 
facts are now far too numerous for record. They are the tan- 
gible evidences of another life, and experimental illustrations 
of our intercourse with the Invisible World. And yet the 
troubled ghost of a dead theology, and the priestly guardians 
of a Church that has lost all evidence of its spiritual vitality — 
whose history is blackened by the sad record of a thousand 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 23 1 

crimes — still howl at us through the midnight darkness of their 
disappointment and woe — " Spiritualism is an unholy thing, 
and an abomination before God ! " 

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, gives a descrip- 
tive enumeration of the various " spiritual gifts " of his time, 
marked examples of all of which have come within the sphere 
of our own observation. Of all these he says : " Brethren, / 
would not have you ignorant ; " and again, "covet earnestly the 
best gifts." The apostolic injunction to " try the Spirits" 
should be a sufficient warrant for every Christian to engage in 
a fearless investigation. This exhortation is profoundly sig- 
nificant. . The idea of a trial of the Spirits not only implies 
that they are not all of the same class, or of similar character, 
and hence we must exercise a just discrimination ; but it also 
calls for a searching and exhaustive inquiry into all the facts. 
When a man is put upon his trial we summon all the wit- 
nesses ; all parties listen to them patiently ; the counsel scru- 
tinize, sift, and weigh the testimony ; and then the tribunal 
is expected to render an impartial judgment. When will the 
Church thus " try the Spirits ? " Instead of manifesting the 
least disposition to do this at present, the Rev. Dr. Hawley — 
who represents the Church in this particular instance — lifts 
up his hands in holy horror and exclaims, " Oh, my soul, come 
not thou into their secret ! " 

Now suppose a man should undertake to teach chemistry 
who had never been inside of a laboratory ; or to lecture us 
on astronomy who had never looked through a telescope, and 
had not the first idea about the laws of planetary motion ; 
what would the world say of such a man ? It would not be 



232 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

polite for me to conjecture the answer. But let us most re- 
spectfully admonish the gentleman and all of his class that 
they must get into tlte spiritual arcana and discover the secrets of 
this inner world and life before they will ever be qualified to write 
on the subject to the edification of the piiblic. So long as they do 
nothing but stand outside of this realm of mystery, and pray 
to remain in ignorance of all it contains, other and wiser peo- 
ple may be excused for declining to join in the solemn farce 
of their devotions. 

There is no longer any plausible excuse for so much clerical 
ignorance on this important subject, now that the open chan- 
nels of communication with the Spirit-world are so numer- 
ous. When a single medium — Dr. J. V. Mansfield, corner 
of Sixth Avenue and Forty-second Street, New York — has re- 
ceived answers, during the period he has been acting as the 
amanuensis of the Spirits, to more than one hundred thousand 
sealed letters, not less than ninety thousand of which have been 
vehicles of convincing evidence that they were dictated by 
Spirits of the invisible world, no one need be wholly unin- 
formed on the most important question of the living age. If, 
however, they are determined to keep up their shutters and 
forever exclude the light ; if they will close their ears against 
the testimony of contemporaneous millions ; if they will run 
away from all knowledge as if a legion of devils were after 
them ; if they continue to pray aloud that their righteous souls 
may never witness these demonstrative proofs of their own 
immortality, they should at least cease to shock the common 
sense of modesty by opposing their ignorance to the knowl- 
edge of other people. 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 233 

Free social intercourse with congenial natures is both pleas- 
ant and profitable. The reciprocal expression of feeling, of 
thought and sentiment, is not necessarily demoralizing, while 
by the commerce of ideas we meet so many phases of mind 
that our views of men and of things are constantly enlarged. 
Nor is there aught in the simple fact that two minds occupy 
separate spheres of being that can render such intercourse 
either criminal or unnatural. If the existence of higher and 
lower conditions of conscious being interposes impassable bar- 
riers, then age may not minister to youth nor wisdom com- 
municate with ignorance. Those who maintain that all such 
intercourse between spirits and mortals— human minds i?i two 
separate states of being — involves a violation of some imaginary 
divine law, show their incapacity to expound their own sacred 
books. Indeed, the very men who profess to regard every 
example of such intercourse as a heaven-daring sin against 
God, explain the parable of the rich man and Lazarus as if it 
were an authentic history of events. The common evangelical 
exegesis makes it apear that Abraham in heaven argued an 
important question with Dives in hell. (Luke xvi. 19-31.) 
It is worthy of remark that both parties to the discussion rec- 
ognized the important fact that a spirit might be sent either 
from heaven or hell to this world for a purpose. But if a free 
conversation between spirits in two distinct states or spheres 
of being is such a foul abomination, why was not " faithful 
Abraham " made to follow the other fallen angels which we 
read of in " Paradise Lost ? " 

With a few words respecting the abnormal and monstrous 
position assumed by the dogmatic ecclesiastics of Protestant 



234 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

Christendom, I shall leave the whole subject to the considera- 
tion of the reader. The attitude of the Church is at war alike 
with the divine economy in the natural world, the laws and 
relations of the human mind and heart, and the Providence 
which regulates the development of religious ideas. If you have 
kindred arid friends in heaven who are pleased to come and 
watch over your wayward fortunes in this world, the Church 
insists that you must not encourage their approaches, since to 
commune with them in any literal sense, even as friend with 
friend, is an abomination in the sight of God. If the departed 
wife comes to visit her lonely companion and the home made 
desolate by her absence — comes to prove that death has not 
extinguished the sacred flame that burned on the altar when 
life and love were new — the solitary one is required to spurn 
the loving presence as a minister of eviL If the faithful hus- 
band returns to the widow in her weeds because true love is 
more enduring than the Church contract of marriage, she is ex- 
pected to crucify her woman's heart, and, in fear of God and 
her minister, to banish the true guardian of her life. Should 
the sainted mother come to her wayward boy, baptized in the 
fire of a love that many waters cannot quench — come to win 
him from scenes of dissipation and the selfishness of an un- 
worthy ambition, he is admonished to disregard the sacred 
obligation of filial affection and to turn his back on the mother 
who bore him, for the reason that " the Spirits are all evil /" 
It matters not if they bring health to the sick, comfort to the 
sorrowing, and hope to the aged pilgrim on the brink of the 
silent river. All these manifestations must be regarded as the 
deceptive arts of the adversary of souls, who is thus " trans- 



SPIRITUALISM AND ITS FOES ON TRIAL. 235 

formed into an angel of light," only that he may make his dia- 
bolical purpose sure. If this is so, where, oh where is God ? 
and how are his angels employed ? Can ignorance, blind in- 
fatuation and sectarian bigotry further go and have immunity 
in the reverend name of Jesus of Nazareth ! 

When the young mother, grieving for her first-born, goes 
out beneath the soft moonlight of summer skies and the love- 
lighted eyes of Angel-watchers to weep over the little mound 
where the early hopes of maternal affection lie buried, she 
must never cherish the thought that the little spirit may still 
nestle in her own bosom, and even lay its gentle hand upon 
the throbbing heart to still the wild tumult of her grief ! All 
this is Spiritualism ; and these are the unspeakable consola- 
tions it brings to the bereaved and sorrowing heart. And 
yet we are solemnly admonished by grave divines that Spirit- 
ualism is not only destitute of any moral force — any humaniz- 
ing and redeeming power ; but that it is only a "putrescent 
heap " and the unholy ghost of an " effete paganism. " 

If the Protestant sects resolve to maintain this attitude to- 
ward Spiritualism, their days are numbered. The next cen- 
tury will complete the history of the Church militant and 
write its epitaph. A fire is kindled which will consume every 
unclean thing, and all the institutions which have outlived the 
period of their usefulness. Temples long desecrated by bap- 
tized infidels ; altars polluted by unholy sacrifices ; and not a 
single refuge of lies — however consecrated by time and the sa- 
cred traditions of men — will be spared in the coming ordeal. 
The human soul is the earthly temple of the Infinite Presence. 
The indwelling divinity will not desert the holy shrine. The 



236 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

religious principle can never die ; and the true worshipers — 
such as worship " in spirit and in truth " — will be multiplied in 
the coming time. In great plainness of speech, and in all kind- 
ness of spirit, let us admonish the clergy that their zeal is not 
inspired by spiritual knowledge and the wisdom which is from 
above. Let them pause in their ruthless efforts to crush out 
the purest and noblest human attributes and bury them in the 
grave. Deathless, forever, as the soul, are the affections which 
bind us to the living and the dead. The effort to extinguish 
them, or to limit their exercise to this life, is sacrilege ! Let no 
man dare to desecrate the spiritual temple of the living God ! 
The Spirit of the Times speaks as with the trumpet of an 
Archangel. It is the mighty voice that broke the deep silence 
in the young morning of Creation : Let there be Light ! 
Dark ages, like phantom shapes of ill, vanish in the distance. 
The Liberating Eras come to redeem Humanity, and Liberty 
now clothes herself with the majesty of Law. Here end the 
hierarchal despotisms that so long have enslaved the souls of 
men, Even now 

" The thunders of the Vatican fall dead, 
Geneva, Augsburg, Westminster, no more 
Shall pour their dread artillery of wrath 
On the sweet flower-fields where the children play, 
Or the glad homes where wedded lovers dwell. 
Break forth into thanksgiving, all ye saints 
And martyrs of humanity, who wear 
In Heaven's pure light the palm-branch and the crown : 
The day of Freedom dawns upon the World ! " 

S. B. Brittan. 



The Lexington, 165 E. 49TH St. 
New York, Feb 



St., } 
, 1881. J 



THE MYSTERY REVEALED. 

A NEW CLERICAL RATTLE FOR JUVENILE MINDS. 

FROM THE DAILY ADVERTISER, AUBURN", N. Y., MARCH 23, 1881. 

The Last Theory of the Rappings — Original if not True— The Mystery Unveiled by 
a Presbyterian Minister — Excitement at Hydesville — What Burgess Knows 
about a Bedstead— The Cunning of the Foxes— Pilgrims at the Mecca of Spirit- 
ualism — Expose of the Trick — A Divine Uncovers the Mystery of Iniquity — 
" The Most Gigantic Sell "—The Rickety Old Bedstead Never Moved— Testimony 
of a Pious Witness — He says it " has Doubtless Returned to Dust" — In a more 
Vital Sense it still Lives — Like John Brown's Soul, the Spirit of that Bedstead 
" is Marching On" — The Rappings are all over the World — Burgess "Would 
not Disparage Spiritualism" — He only Offers " this Little Scrap of History" — 
Legend of the Seven Sleepers — The Last One Wakes from a Nightmare. 

Editor of the Daily Advertiser : 

MY attention has been called to the fact that an article, 
written by Rev. A. Park Burgess, and entitled " Man- 
ifestations," is just now performing the circuit of the press. 
It appears to have been originally contributed to the Mexico, 
New York, Independent. It reappeared in your paper of the 
date of the 7th ultimo, bearing the editorial indorsement that 
" The writer is one of the most popular and talented clergy- 
men in the Presbyterian Church " of the region where he 
belongs ; that he is " a man of large experience, earnest 
thought, and high culture," whose testimony is presumed to 
have weight. This information is important, for the reason 
that without it we might have reached a different conclusion. 
It may surprise some people to know that a man appointed 

237 



238 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

to a sacred office, and possessing the qualifications specified 
above, should trifle with his claims to honorable distinction 
by giving such a letter to the press. 

The writer begins by characterizing Spiritualism as nothing 
else but " a strange delusion," and he proceeds to treat the 
subject seemingly under the misapprehension that it has no 
possible foundation but the "Rochester rappings." After 
referring briefly to Hydesville, and to the gentleman from 
whom the village derived its name, he describes the former 
residence of the Fox family — the scene of the early rappings 
— as " an old shell, dilapidated and gloomy, looking as though 
another term at Rochester rappings would knock it into kin- 
dling wood." In his characterization of the mediums— which 
I take the liberty to condense — he is pleased to say : " The 
girls were wide awake, ingenious and daring young misses, 
determined to ' raise a breeze ' in one way or another." Then 
follows this remarkable explanation of the rappings, which is 
about as luminous as several hypotheses which have emanated 
from the pulpit : 

' ' A certain old bedstead in a corner bed-room could be made with reli- 
able certainty — by a little imperceptible motion of a person sitting on the 
edge of it — to produce a sound resembling a light rap. The girls discov- 
ered this fact and utilized it. They started the exciting cry that Spirits 
were there — the house was haunted — a person had been foully murdered 
in the cellar. The Spirit pointed out these facts with startling certainty. 
The excitement rapidly spread. Neighbors were called in, and in all 
their investigations they left the strange noises still shrouded in mystery. 
The poor old father and mother were ' dumbfounded ' and partly con- 
vinced." 

The reverend gentleman then portrays in his hyperbolical 
speech the increasing excitement among the people, and tells 



THE MYSTERY REVEALED. 239 

how " thousands in a day " came to this " Mecca — the his- 
toric headquarters of their marvelous faith " — like pilgrims to 
a holy shrine, so that the fence-posts " for a mile became 
hitching places for teams. The whole town was in an up- 
roar." How long this state of things continued does not 
appear from the testimony of this veracious historian of Spir- 
itualism. But the crisis came at last, and the manner of its 
coming is thus described : 

"A committee to investigate was chosen, of which Bailey D. Foster, 
one of my elders, and not yet a very old man, was a member. He with 
others, after the most ridiculous humbugging and excitement, detected 
the trick and exposed it. The crowd at once fell off ; the public felt a 
deep disgust and indignation ; the girls went away to Rochester, and did 
not live here any more ; and everybody gave up the ' big thing ' as one of 
the most gigantic sells and swindles recorded in modern history." 

It would be quite impossible to enumerate the explanations 
which, from time to time, have been given of the rappings 
and other mysterious phenomena since the beginning of the 
spiritual movement. Few of these have recognized the laws 
and relations of mind and matter, or discovered so much as 
the smallest element of probability in their composition. But 
among these preposterous theories and groundless specula- 
tions, I can hardly recall one thing that seems to me more 
absurd and ridiculous than this bed-room exposition by Rev. 
Mr. Burgess. According to this grave divine, the rapping 
sounds were in the beginning, and they are now, dependent 
upon the instrumentality of that little, rickety " old bedstead 
in a corner" of the cottage at Hydesville. To say the least, 
he does not so much as intimate that they were ever produced 
elsewhere or in any other way. It was only necessary for 



24O THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

one of the girls to make " a little imperceptible motion " while 
" sitting on the edge of it," and thus the raps came with all 
the collateral evidences of an invisible intelligence. Mirabile 
dictu ! No spiritual or other extra influence was either re- 
quired by the nature of the facts or admitted to exist. This 
is the last solution of the spiritual mystery on the authority 
of a popular divine. 

Let us cross-examine the witness. Is Mr. Burgess informed 
of the fact that, at a very early period in the history of these 
phenomena, the rappings were produced, with no less distinct- 
ness, before a public assembly convened in a large hall at 
Rochester ? Was the little " old bedstead " taken from its 
place in the corner at Hydesville to Corinthian Hall, in order 
to supply the requisite material conditions for the production 
of the sounds? Is the gentleman who proposes to furnish 
facts for the future historian aware that when the Fox family 
first came to this city and held their seances at the old Howard 
House, there was no bedstead in the room ? Does he know 
that the sounds came alike on table, floors, doors, and that 
they often occurred on the ceilings at least six feet above the 
heads of the mediums ? 

If Mr. Burgess, personally, has no knowledge of this fact, 
has he not at least good reasons for believing that the same 
sounds have occurred in the homes of millions in every part of 
the civilized world ? Is he ignorant of the fact that the mys- 
terious rappings have been heard in many public assembly 
rooms in both hemispheres ; in the palaces of London, Paris, 
and St. Petersburg ; in the temples of religion ; in the halls of 
science ; beneath the shadows of the Vatican ; on the pyra- 



THE MYSTERY REVEALED. 24 1 

mids of Egypt ; among the ruins of buried empires and in the 
silent mausolea of the illustrious dead ? 

We are left to conclude that he has no knowledge of these 
facts, and that for this reason he is led to presume, that the 
personal presence of one of the Fox sisters and the interven- 
tion of that same "old bedstead," are still necessary to the 
production of the sounds. In the closing part of his letter 
to the press, Mr. Burgess says : " The old bedstead has doubt- 
less returned to dust." 

Alas ! that being the case the conditions are destroyed, and 
how can any more mysterious rappings possibly occur ? Shade 
of Solon ! grant us wisdom equal to the emergency. We are 
sure that this avant-courier of the coming historian of Spirit- 
ualism will have nothing to do with " the most gigantic sells 
and swindles " but to expose the same and denounce their 
authors. He says : "I would not disparage Spiritualism by 
this little scrap of history— of course not, by any means ! " 
This will be a comfort to people of weak faith. We realize 
just haw he is assisting us to exalt the truth in public estima- 
tion. At the same time it seems to us that his theory requires 
revision. Since the old bedstead is pulverized, does not the 
fact that the sounds still continue disprove the Burgess hy- 
pothesis and make it necessary for us to look elsewhere if we 
would discover the cause of the rappings ? 

Here is a man reputed to be " one of the most popular and 
talented clergymen " of his denomination. He has been es- 
pecially set apart and consecrated by the solemnity of his 
ordination for the work of explaining the mysteries of a Re- 
ligion that claims a spiritual origin. He should himself pos- 



242 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

sess and exercise the very gifts he refuses to recognize. On 
the contrary, he derides the legitimate powers and appropriate 
functions of the office which he professes to hold as a sacred 
trust, while he treats the whole subject in a manner at once 
so undignified and frivolous that he scarcely merits serious 
attention. 

We are glad to be assured that the author of this theory is a 
man of influence ; that he enjoys the reputation of being a 
thinker and a gentleman of culture ; that there is a certain 
potency in what he has to say, owing to the fact that he is 
favorably reported for piety, stands well and is popular with 
his brethren. We have thought of all this with a serene satis- 
faction ; but after all it really seems to the observation of the 
writer, that Rev. Mr. Burgess is just now speaking out of a 
restless and broken slumber of thirty years or more ! 

S. B. Brittan. 

The Lexington, 165 E. 49TH St., ) 
New York, March 20, 1881. ) 



THE OPPOSITION IN BALTIMORE. 

UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF THE CHRISTIAN PULPIT. 

WRITTEN FOR THE BALTIMORE AMERICAN. 

Rev. Joel T. Rossiter on Spiritualism — The Seance at Endor — The Medium Vindi- 
cated — A Royal dead-head Investigator — Mistakes of the Preacher — A Divine 
treats Samuel coldly — He is not sure the Prophet put in an Appearance — Bold 
stand of Rev. Dr. Butler — How he Exorcised the Spirits— The Soulless Body at 
Endor — Puppet-show at the Transfiguration — How the Lord is supposed to have 
deceived Jesus, Peter, James and John — The Platitudes of the Pulpit — Character 
of the Religious Opposition to Spiritualism — A grave Divine quotes a Vulgar 
Jester. 

To the Editor of the Baltimore American : 

SOME one has sent me your paper of the thirty-first ultimo, 
in which I find a synopsis of a sermon on Spiritualism, by 
Rev. Joel T. Rossiter, whose mind appears to be in a con- 
fused state in relation to the general subject of spiritual phe- 
nomena, and their relations to a Divine purpose in the moral 
government of this world. The text is taken from the inter- 
view between Saul and the woman of Endor, during which 
Samuel appeared ; the spirit was impressively described by 
the medium, and from that description was recognized by the 
royal visitor as the prophet. Saul had cruelly persecuted the 
Spirit-mediums of his time, and in order to avoid recognition 
''he disguised himself," and went to his seance in the night. 
But the moment the venerable form of the prophet appeared to 
the woman's vision she comprehended the fact that her visitor 
was the king. Knowing the fierce hostility of her royal mas- 

243 



244 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ter to all of her class, she was naturally alarmed for her safety, 
but was assured that no harm should come to her. I extract 
the following passage from the report of Mr. Rossiter's dis- 
course as published in your paper : 

" Saul went to the witches. There is something remarkable in the 
fact that he should have recourse to those whom he had endeavored to 
turn out of the land. The good Spirits having deserted him, he goes to 
the evil spirits. When the spirit of Samuel arises before him, he tries in 
vain to quiet himself. What an awful seance was this ! and it should 
teach us not to quench the Spirit." 

Let me here perform a simple act of justice in behalf of a 
respectable and noble woman — an ancient medium who has 
been remorselessly slandered by the Christian clergy for many 
centuries. She was a kind-hearted woman while she resided 
at Endor, and she must be a forgiving and peaceable spirit in 
heaven, or she would have haunted the Church that has so 
long defamed her before the world. Perhaps I can best vin- 
dicate her character and do some slight justice to her memory 
by showing the striking contrast in the moral characteristics 
of Saul and the medium of Endor. I am not in the habit of 
wasting many words on the average king, and a brief charac- 
terization will suffice for the present occasion. Saul was a 
proud and unscrupulous dissembler — a royal hypocrite, and 
in many ways a bad man. He appears to have occupied the 
good woman's time through the afternoon, for which he never 
gave her one shekel ; and then, to cap the climax of the royal 
meanness, he allowed the generous hostess to have the only 
" fat calf " she possessed butchered, and he and his attend- 
ants accepted her cordial invitation to supper. And this very 
selfish man and cowardly tyrant did not hesitate to hunt inno- 



THE OPPOSITION IN BALTIMORE. 245 

cent people out of his kingdom for doing precisely what he 
practiced himself at Endor. 

Modern divines are accustomed to speak of the medium of 
Endor as "a witch ;" but she is not so characterized in the 
Scriptures. On the contrary, she is referred to in respectful 
terms as " a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor." 
(I. Samuel xxviii. 7.) There is not a single word in the rec- 
ord to show that she was not in all respects a most reputable 
person. The narrative of her interview with the king renders 
it evident that while he had exercised his royal prerogative in 
banishing mediums from home and their country, he was quite 
willing, in a great emergency, to avail himself of the services 
of one of their number. It also proves— if anything can be 
proved by the Bible — that the medium was not only strictly 
honest, but that she was also a most unselfish and hospitable 
woman, by whose personal acquaintance and kind attentions 
even the king was honored. And yet strange and irrational 
as such conduct seems and is, this royal oppressor and hypo- 
crite — this very cowardly dead-head i?ivestigator of Spiritualism, 
who went to a medium under cover of congenial darkness, 
because he was sorely distressed, for information which he 
could obtain in no other way — is represented as coming to us 
with all the majesty of infinite authority for his cruel persecu- 
tion of mediums ! This was the way " he served the Lord as 
if the devil was in him ! " And this iniquitous business did 
not end with king Saul. No ; we have yet to see the end of 
it. This worthy woman, in whose presence his unwelcome 
destiny was made known, has been defamed for centuries. 
Though honest beyond suspicion and generous far above re- 



246 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

proach ; and, withal, possessed of rare " Spiritual gifts," as 
the record plainly shows, she still continues to be stigmatized 
by every Orthodox divine as an old hag, who, through " ways 
that were dark," was in league with the devil. 

Mr. Rossiter is pleased to say that " Saul went to the witches ; " 
but the record, which he professes to regard as a divinely in- 
spired revelation, contains no warrant for the statement. Can 
it be necessary for him to " add to the words of the book" or to 
amend an infallible record] The medium at Endor is itowhere 
called " a witch" and it used to be quite orthodox to never 
assume to be "wise above what is written." In the opinion 
of the preacher it is " something remarkable that he (Saul) 
should have recourse to those whom he had endeavored to turn 
out of the land." Surely this is nothing remarkable in these 
days. There are many clergymen — we know some of them — 
who boldly denounce the Spirits before their congregations 
while, like King Saul, they " put on other raiment," or adopt 
some cheap method by which they expect to escape recogni- 
tion when they go to consult Spirits of the other world. Dr. 
J. V. Mansfield, who resides at the corner of Sixth avenue 
and Forty-second street, New York — he is the writing medium 
through whose hand the Spirits answer sealed letters — assures 
me that much the larger part of his patrons come from the 
churches, and that many of them are ministers. During the 
anniversaries he is crowded with clerical visitors, who express 
astonishment and satisfaction at what they received from the 
Spirits, and then some of them go home and dishonor the 
claims of Spiritualism before their congregations. 

Mr. Rossiter does not appear to be fortunate in his elucida- 



THE OPPOSITION IN BALTIMORE. 247 

tions. One has only to take a single brief sentence from the 
passage already quoted to show the maximum of dogmatic as- 
sumption and the minimum of truth. Here is an illustrative 
example, which we emphasize : " The good Spirits having de- 
serted him, he goes to the evil spirits!' The truth is, Saul did 
nothing of the kind, nor had the good Spirits entirely deserted 
him. This two-fold statement derives no support whatever 
from the biblical history. On the contrary, if the gentleman's 
infallible authority has any weight, it completely demolishes 
his assumption. When Saul went to the medium, instead of 
soliciting an audience with evil demons, he expressly said to 
the woman, " Bri?ig me tip Samuel." (I. Sam. xxviii. n.) 
The fact that Saul called for Samuel, and for no one else, 
proves that he was not seeking intercourse with evil spirits ; 
and the additional fact that Samuel came promptly when his 
presence was invoked, proves that the good Spirits had not 
entirely forsaken the king. Perhaps the whole Jewish history, 
from Moses to Jesus, does not furnish an example of a better 
character than that of the prophet Samuel. But he now falls 
under condemnation because he ventured to show himself one 
day after " all Israel lamented him " as dead, and his friends 
had made sure that he was decently buried in his native city 
of Ramah. The Christian clergy appear to have taken offense 
because he came back after death ; and, more especially, for 
the reason that in so doing he confirmed the pretensions of an 
old woman who is presumed to have served the devil by her 
mediumship. 

It appears from the report of the discourse in your paper, 
that Mr. Rossiter does not like to believe that the immortal 



248 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

spirit of the good prophet really came from the other world 
and gave convincing evidence to sinners of his actual pres- 
ence. Unhappily this would be a verification of the claims 
of the person whom, by way of reproach, he calls " the witch 
of Endor" He comprehends the fact that such an admission 
would wholly unsettle his premises in the argument against 
Spiritualism. Mark with what caution he attempts to evade 
the force of the significant fact which he has not the temerity 
to dispute. This is the way he balances himself for a mo- 
ment on several implied possibilities, and then takes a leap 
into the darkness of uncertainty and that imaginary paradise 
where "ignorance is bliss : " 

" This mysterious appearance is not explained up to the present day. 
Saint Augustine says, by some mysterious dispensation of the Divine will, 
the witch was allowed to call up Samuel himself. Others hold to the 
belief that God allowed the spirit of Samuel to appear to the discomfiture 
and astonishment of the witch, and sent his own prophet from the grave 
to accuse Saul. In the book of Ecclesiastes, it is said, Samuel prophesied 
after his death and told the king his end. But we will leave this matter 
as one unknown and uncertain, remembering that curiosity to know the 
difference between good and evil was the commencement of sin." 

It will be observed that the preacher does not like to credit 
the fact of the actual appearance of Samuel. He is not sure 
that the prophet was there. Indeed, he affirms that " this 
mysterious appearance is not explained to the present day." 
And then, with more deliberation, he disproves his own state- 
ment by citing the explanations of Saint Augustine and others. 
He deprecates investigation, and thinks the curiosity which 
prompts it is incipient " sin." The undeveloped condition in 
which man is utterly unable to distinguish " the difference . 
between good and evil " is, in his judgment, the safest for all 



THE OPPOSITION IN BALTIMORE. 249 

men. This condition of mind is infantile to the last degree. 
He finally concludes to " leave this matter as one unknown 
and uncertain." 

In his citations of the opinions of eminent men, respecting 
that spiritual visitation at Endor, Mr. Rossiter might have 
added that of the Rev. C. M. Butler, D.D., published twenty- 
seven years ago, when that popular divine was the rector of 
Trinity Church, Washington, D. C, and also Chaplain of the 
United States Senate. Perhaps this occurred before the rev- 
erend gentleman entered upon his ministry, or for some other 
reason it may have escaped his observation. I will therefore 
ask his attention to it in this connection : 

" It is to be remarked, moreover, that among all the strange and mi- 
raculous events of both dispensations, there is not one instance on record of 
the manifestation of a disembodied human spirit to the minds of men. 
Samuel appeared to Saul under the incantations of the Witch of Endor as 
much to the surprise of the sorceress as to the terror of the impious king. 
But it was not the disembodied spirit of the prophet which manifested 
itself to Saul. It was his body, or a visible representation of his body, 
which God miraculously summoned for his own wise purposes." 

Here the learned Doctor, being " wise above what is written," 
affirms that " there is not one instance on record of the mani- 
festation of a disembodied spirit." Samuel was not at Endor 
at all ; he was somewhere else ; Dr. Butler and Mr. Rossiter 
do not know exactly where, probably because Samuel does 
not report his movements to the ministers' association. Only 
the prophet's " body " appear -ed, " or a visible representation of 
his body which God miraculously summoned." That is to say, 
the All-wise Creator of the Universe is presumed to have vin- 
dicated the claims of that " old witch " by a special miracle, in 
11* 



250 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

which he created an automaton figure to deceive Saul, and 
then caused it to move like a living man by a special applica- 
tion of the Divine Will ! Here the Supreme Being is repre- 
sented as the manager of a mere puppet-show I If this is not 
blasphemy under the canon-law, would it not be well to em- 
ploy a committee of respectable Infidels to revise the Church 
definition ? 

Judging from your report of Rev. Mr. Rossiter's sermon, he 
does not appear to be so confident of his authority under the 
apostolic commission as some of his brethren. Dr. Butler did 
not hesitate, but swept the whole spiritual field with his besom. 
He disposed of Moses and Elias in the same summary man- 
ner that he dismissed Samuel ; and all the other Spirits of 
men who have ever dared to revisit the earth were instructed 
to leave in the same shadowy train. His summary method of 
exorcism was the clerical ipse dixit, and behold their immortal 
spirits were not permitted to show themselves anywhere about 
this terrestrial ball ! Instead of a number of deathless spirits 
appearing to men in the flesh, we have only so many soulless 
bodies, made up of common earth, water, and air, all for the 
purpose of a spectacular and deceptive exhibition ! Jesus, 
Peter, James, and John, indeed, appear to have believed that 
the Master was really honored by the spiritual presence of 
Moses and Elias at his transfiguration. But no ; we are ad- 
monished that instead of such illustrious witnesses, the Lord 
determined to have no such devilish proceedings, and hence 
only set up in the mountain two holloiv shams for inspection, 
merely to illustrate his power over the elements of matter, 
and to astonish Jesus and his disciples ! 



THE OPPOSITION IN BALTIMORE. 25 1 

It is not in the power of Mr. Rossiter to damage Spiritualism 
by stooping to the low level of the stale and unprofitable plati- 
tudes which he repeats in the middle and concluding portions 
of his desultory discourse. He puts into his sermon the same 
old threadbare objections, which — though they have been an- 
swered a thousand times — never had any force among intelli- 
gent people. He draws on his imagination and the vulgar jests 
of poor wit-snappers for his facts. Here are some examples, 
taken at random, of his undignified and trifling treatment of a 
grave subject : 

i. " After a spirit has been enthroned in heaven it can't write as well or 
as grammatically." 

This statement is a misrepresentation ; but as the preacher 
is evidently not at all acquainted with the real facts, we must 
wink at his want of correct information, and forgive his unwise 
and uncharitable assumption. Further knowledge will en- 
lighten his mind and enable him to revise his judgment. 

2. " The followers of Spiritualism are constantly in a nervous condi- 
tion, which brings about a ruined mind." 

The circle of our acquaintance among Spiritualists is rather 
extensive, and embraces thousands of persons in all ranks of 
society, from the humblest people up to the most eminent au- 
thors, inventors, artists, merchant-princes and scientific phi- 
losophers in the civilized world ; United States Senators, dis- 
tinguished jurists, Generals in the Army, and Bishops in the 
Church. But we have never observed that these people are 
more nervous than other men and women. Instead of their 
minds being ruined, they are not only, as a rule, calm, thought- 
ful and self-possessed, but they are, in some important sense, 



252 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

even now engaged in shaping the more liberal faith, the more 
comprehensive science, and the deeper and more spiritual phi- 
losophy of the better time coming. 

3. "It (Spiritualism) has shorn down hosts of the brightest and most 
intellectual minds in the world." 

This involves the admission that the finest intellects have 
embraced Spiritualism. Our own observation confirms the 
truth of what is here distinctly implied, but we were not look- 
ing in this direction for a recognition of the fact. We know 
of many persons whose minds have been greatly exalted and 
illuminated by Spiritualism. The angel of a new dispensation 
has placed in their hands the keys which unlock the spiritual 
mysteries of the beautiful Hereafter. On one point, however, 
we are much in need of further light. Will it be convenient 
for Rev. Mr. Rossiter to introduce us to the "hosts it has shorn 
down " among " the brightest and most intellectual minds in 
the world ? " " Shorn down " we suppose means, clipped from 
the surface ; abridged with respect to space ; or curtailed — 
which, how, and to what extent ? " 

4. " When the steamer Atlantic was missing, the witch was called on, 
and numerous instances are known where the news she gave, that the ves- 
sel went down with all on board, drove the hearers to a lunatic asylum." 

It so happens that the present writer was familiarly ac- 
quainted with the medium and the material facts connected 
with the case of the steamer Atlantic. We respectfully ask 
the preacher to give the public the name of " the witch . . . 
called on ; " also a list of the " numerous instances known," 
the number and the names of " the hearers " who went to " a 
lunatic asylum " as a consequence of her revelations. 



THE OPPOSITION IN BALTIMORE. 253 

5. "You cannot hold the Bible in one hand and Spiritualism in the 
other." 

Holding the Bible in one hand need not prevent any one 
from holding on to Spiritualism with both hands, and taking it 
into the mind and heart All that is most vital in the book 
consists of the facts which belong to the Spiritualism of all 
ages. The truth is, if the Church insists on rejecting the 
demonstrated spiritual facts of the present, positive science 
and a materialistic philosophy, like a resistless tide, will sweep 
away the claims of all its sacred books and traditions as the 
debris of earlier times. 

6. "Spiritualism calls up Tom Paine to testify that he is stopping in 
the same place in heaven as St. Paul. They that do these things are an 
abomination to the Lord." 

This is not the product of a spiritual mind. While we see 
no particular reason why St. Paul and Thomas Paine may not 
meet on friendly terms in the Spirit-world, we do see very 
clearly that this is the shallow invention of a profane jester who 
some time ago set up for a wit, but never achieved any great dis- 
tinction. This vulgar attempt to be facetious at the expense of 
the Spiritualists had its origin in a newspaper office in this 
city. Its author was opposed to Spiritualism, as his poor 
effort to ridicule the whole subject should have rendered ap- 
parent to any mind of ordinary intelligence and refinement. 
But the preacher quotes the words of an irreverent jester as 
coming from the Spirit-world because, we may suppose, it 
suits his taste and furthers his purpose to do so. If Mr. Ros- 
siter is right in saying, " They that do these things are an abom- 
ination to the Lord," it is time for all such enemies of the 



254 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

truth of Spiritualism to take warning from their own preach- 
ing, and make haste to cleanse themselves of this abomination. 
They close their eyes to the light ; they shut their ears to all 
human testimony, and then judge and denounce, ex cathedra, 
the truth they will not understand. 

Only our adversaries can possibly suffer from the course 
they have adopted. Happily the progress of science and the 
practical assertion of the inalienable rights of man, and the 
essential principles of free government in our political institu- 
tions, have placed the governing power in the hands of the 
people. The trembling mortal no longer pales before the 
terrors of the Inquisition. Democracy does not respect the 
claims of tyrants, in either Church or State, but makes it con- 
venient for them to go into retirement. If in some enlight- 
ened countries, crowns are still inherited like other chattels, 
they are chiefly worn as ornamental insignia by those whom 
the people are pleased to honor, rather than as symbols of 
irresponsible power. The philosophical Spiritualist represents 
this advanced state of society. In the free championship of his 
doctrines he uses no weapon but "the sword of the Spirit." 
With a profound sense of composure he can afford to work 
and wait for the triumph of Truth which is sure to come. 

S. B. Brittan. 



The Lexington, 
New York, March, 1881 



.: 



THE WAY SPIRITUALISM IS EXPOSED. 

HOW THEY PLAY THE FARCE IN DUBLIN. 

WRITTEN FOR THE SHAUGHRAUN, IRELAND. 

A Bogus Medium on the Rampage — The pious Mountebanks — Serving the Lord and 
the Jugglers— The Farce of Exposure— Saints pay for the Exhibition — Mysterious 
personal Disappearance — The fine Art of Deception — How a Rogue pursued his 
Occupation — The Secret let out in Ireland — Fools practicing their Folly — Mad- 
men rave while the Stars shine and Heaven is Serene — Lights on the Headlands 
of Time — An Angel standing in the Sun. 

To the Editor of the Shaughraun : 

IN a late issue of your paper I notice an article entitled 
"Second Sight Exposed, by an Ex-Medium," in which 
the writer professes to uncover the mystery of iniquity known 
as Modern Spiritualism, and to reveal the naked deformity of 
its disciples. In the following extract we are favored with 
the writer's estimate of the whole spiritual fraternity, which is 
not more complimentary than the published opinions of many 
of his class. I quote from his introductory paragraph : 

" I must confess that I have never met any class of men so utterly de- 
praved, so entirely wanting in respect to mankind or reverence to God, as 
those outrageous and blasphemous rascals who work the Spiritualistic 
business. The spirit-circle and the animated furniture share places with 
the dark seance and second-sight. The first two are carried out in a quasi- 
private manner ; the latter were, at the start, entrusted to certain presti- 
digitateurs who traveled from town to town, giving, under the name of 
jugglery, an extraordinary entertainment, which public ignorance con- 
nected with the spiritualistic — a belief not at all discouraged by the nim- 
ble-fingered gentleman who owned the ' show.' " 

There have been many so-called exposures of Spiritualism 

255 



256 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

in this country and in Europe. Several poor jugglers and a 
multitude of pious mountebanks have engaged in the business, 
and it may be that some found it profitable. The scientists 
are quite willing to have it exposed, because they would be 
pleased to get rid of all such obstinate facts as are likely to 
upset the whole materialistic formula of the schools of science 
and philosophy. Then the miracle-mongers, curiosity-seekers 
and common idlers enjoy the exhibition. In our religious 
circles there has also been a lively demand for the services of 
the exposers. The experts in this line have had a good time ; 
and the saints — who so love to have " spiritual wickedness " 
exposed in "high places " and low places too — have sold tick- 
ets, advertised the performances, occupied chief seats at the 
bogus seance ; and at last, when the slippery performers have 
suddenly disappeared — like " the little joker which now you 
see and now you don't " — they have purchased a valuable 
experience by paying for the use of halls, carburetted hydro- 
gen consumed, janitor's services, and other expenses. 

This happened not long ago (we are credibly informed) in 
New York, to a learned doctor of divinity and several of his 
people. Some one was leaky, and the fact escaped the cus- 
tody of the faithful. They had employed the cunning trick- 
ster to expose Spiritualism. The men of God could not do it 
effectually, and so they went after a juggler ! His last trick 
was a mysterious personal disappearance between two days, with 
the aggregate receipts of the exhibition. Having served the 
pious purpose of his godly employers, he left, presto ! " for 
parts unknown." Each saw his little ill-fortune in the unpaid 
bills of his lively and accomplished coadjutor. 



THE WAY SPIRITUALISM IS EXPOSED. 25/ 

The juggler vanished while he turned the wheel, 
But never a saint thought it best to squeal. 

Let us see how Spiritualism is exposed in The Shaughraun. 
In his preliminary observations the writer assures us that " the 
animated furniture " is moved by " natural laws ; " that " the 
dark seance is now thoroughly known," and that the only re- 
maining mystery is " Second-Sight." Hazing ?nade a special 
study and practice of this particuia?- phase of the " outrageous and 
blasphemous spiritual rascality" he can presume to speak with 
authority. He declares that it is all a trick, and he proceeds 
to elucidate his own peculiar method of performing the same. 
His exposition is contained in four columns of as melancholy 
reading as one may ever find elsewhere outside of a grave- 
yard. He gives us a little sketch of his life, showing how he 
came to practice as an " outrageous and blasphemous rascal" in 
the "spiritualistic business." At an early age he became a pu- 
pil of a prestidigitateur, and he worked with a lively zeal for 
his master at the juggler}* occupation. According to his own 
showing, he was a promising scholar and made very gratifying 
progress in the fine arts of deception. It would seem that the 
one characteristic feature of all his work for years consisted i?i 
making things appear to be what they were not. His exposure 
of Spiritualism shows that he is still engaged in the same gen- 
eral line of business, notwithstanding he now- boldly professes 
to have abandoned " the horrid trade " some years since. 

We are rarely enlightened and we long since ceased to be 
amused by the exposure farce ; but still, though there is noth- 
ing new, the play goes on and the groundlings are pleased. 
Every few days some new discoverer turns up who is anxious 



258 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

to divulge the whole secret for a price, or for nothing. We 
sometimes wonder if it be possible that these harmless lunatics 
seriously believe they are exposing anything of consequence. 
Showing us either a mere trick, or the everlasting brass of an 
unblushing countenance, is surely no exposure of Spiritualism. 
This is really a very childish occupation. The ambitious little 
boy may aim his pop-gun at either the Greater or the Lesser 
Bear ; but Arcturus will remain and the pole-star shine on. If 
there were less of this wild and random shooting on the part of 
the enemies of Spiritualism, we should be disposed to think that 
this Hibernian journalist was attempting to perpetrate a huge 
joke at the expense of his readers. To elucidate the phenom- 
ena of Spiritualism — which are immeasurably diversified in 
form and world-wide in their occurrence — he tells us how he 
contrived to deceive the good people of Ireland for such small 
wages as he was able to command. If we accept his testi- 
mony and believe that he really sold himself to the adversary 
for what he was worth, more or less, pray what has that fact 
in an ignoble personal history to do with Spiritualism ? Noth- 
ing whatever. The subjects are as opposite as light and dark- 
ness. All his shallow tricks, performed for a few pence, throw 
no possible light on the great question of the ages. We are 
happy to know that no possible measure of deception can an- 
nihilate a single fact in the soul's experience. Clouds can not 
veil the' immortal Illuminati, nor can selfish passions and popu- 
lar skepticism avert the destines of men. 

The truth of Spiritualism is the light of the world ! It will 
shine and grow brighter to the perfect day. It will be a bless- 
ing even to the most benighted, abandoned and hopeless of 



THE WAY SPIRITUALISM IS EXPOSED. 259 

its enemies, whose futile efforts and unworthy devices might 
excite contempt in honest minds if they did not make a still 
stronger appeal to our compassion. In vain are all such at- 
tempts to hide the light. The writer in your paper might as 
well be employed in stirring up a mud-puddle with a view of 
extinguishing the Pleiades. At last invisible hands have placed 
strong lights upon the headlands of Time, where the adverse 
powers of earth and hell can reach them no more. Darkness 
is no concealment. The constellations shine with the greatest 
brilliancy at midnight. So shine the truths of our sublime 
philosophy. Its morning glories like a flaming scarf already 
wave far above the horizon, while a mighty Angel, standing 
in the sun, proceeds to unroll the illuminated scroll of the 
Spiritual Heavens ! 

S. B. Brittan. 
Secular Press Bureau, 
Newark, N. J., June, 



1881. j 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 

ANOTHER BOLD ASSAILANT SHIVERS HIS LANCE. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT. 

Spiritual Phenomena, Subjective and Objective— The Seer of Stockholm — Rev. 
John Wesley— Father Bjerring and the Oriental Church Magazine— Modern 
Spiritualism— Battle with Materialism — Infidelity giving up the Ghost— The 
Masters of Modern Science and Philosophy— The Owens Discover their Immor- 
tality— Dr. Hare's Spiritoscope Leads to his Conversion— Prof. James J. Mapes, 
LL.D., Surrenders at discretion— English Scientists and German Philosophers 
—Hiding the Truth and Falsification of History— " The Evil Eye "—Fox Fam- 
ily Fictions by an unknown Writer — Is the Shade of Munchausen here ?— The 
Tangled Web— Dr. Kane, the Arctic Explorer— His Affection for Margaretta— 
Love Surrenders to Personal Ambition — Conclusion. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

THE Phenomena of Spiritualism, subjective and object- 
ive, are at least as old as authentic history and co-ex- 
tensive with the development of the religious idea, as illus- 
trated in the experience of all ages and countries. People 
who imagine that the subject belongs exclusively to the pres- 
ent generation are utterly ignorant of the basis of the great 
religious systems of the world. The phenomena resulting from 
the near relation and intercommunication of the two spheres 
of being — visible and invisible — are at the foundation of all 
religion; and the man who does not perceive and comprehend 
this fact is not qualified to become a teacher in the highest 
department of human knowledge. Physical science regards 
the elements, forms and phenomena of this world and the 
present life. Religion and worship, rising above the low level 

260 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 26l 

of corporeal existence and sensuous perception, manifest the 
spiritual nature in man and recognize his supra-mundane con- 
stitution and relations. The soul reaches out after the ulti- 
mate sources of life and the springs of universal causation. 
Thus Religion takes hold of the objects of the invisible crea- 
tion and the sublime realities of the future and eternal life of 
the spirit. It is for these reasons, especially, that Religion, in 
a comprehensive sense, embraces the highest department of 
human knowledge. Hereafter it will be made to appear that 
the proper domain of science comprehends the universal field of 
investigation — every human discovery and all formulated knoivl- 
edge of both the material and the spiritual spheres of being — the 
fleeting aspects of " the life that now is " and the immortal 
realities i ' of that which is to come." 

The history of Modern Spiritualism properly dates from the 
advent of Baron Emanuel Swedenborg and Rev. John Wes- 
ley. The former was the most accomplished scholar of his 
age, at the same time he was endowed with the most remarka- 
ble " spiritual gifts ; " whilst the latter— living at the same 
time— was the founder of one of the principal branches of the 
Protestant Church. The experience of Swedenborg illustrated 
the subjective forms of the Spiritual phenomena, or those which 
relate to individual consciousness rather than to external ob- 
servation. These include the opening of the interior chan- 
nels of perception, visions and revelations of the Spirit-world, 
and direct inspiration from the heavens, or superior spheres of 
intelligence. Contemporaneous with these experiences of the 
Seer of Stockholm were the objective or external phases of the 
Spiritual phenomena — addressed to the physical organs of 



262 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

perception — illustrated in a most wonderful manner at Lin- 
colnshire, England, in the house of the celebrated founder of 
Methodism. The essential facts in the Spiritual experience 
of those distinguished men belong to the world's religious 
history. The powers of darkness cannot obscure so great a 
truth. This is indeed the source of the soul's illumination — 
" the dayspring from on high." According to an Evangelist, 
" The light shineth in darkness," while the ages have not 
comprehended its significance ; and yet neither ignorance nor 
falsehood can extinguish its glory. 

Notwithstanding Spiritualism rests on the general experi- 
ence of mankind in all ages, and is fundamental in every sys- 
tem of religion that has exerted any considerable influence on 
the general character and moral development of the human 
race, yet here comes a modern Solomon in the person of a 
contributor to the Oriental Church Magazine* who solemnly 
assures us that the whole system rests — with its acknowledged 
millions of believers — on no more substantial foundation than 
a mere trick, originated " a little over thirty years ago," by two 
little girls in Wayne County, New York. Nothing could sur- 
pass the utter absurdity of this story, and yet we are not pre- 



* The Oriental Church Magazine is conducted by Rev. Nicholas Bjer- 
ring of the Russian Chapel on Second Avenue, New York City. It is a 
Quarterly, and designed to elucidate the essential principles and ritualism 
of some eighty-five millions of Christians, and otherwise to further the 
interests of the Greek Church in America. The present writer has no 
knowledge of " R. W. ," the contributor whose assumptions it is proposed 
to briefly review, except such information as may be derived from his 
essay, and this justifies the inference that he is quite ignorant of the sub- 
ject on which he essays to enlighten Father Bjerring and the good people 
of his communion. 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 263 

pared to say that the author is crazy. Perhaps he does not 
believe it himself, but finds a pleasant pastime in thus playing 
on human credulity. If he does not believe what he says, he 
deserves to be sharply rebuked for this attempt to mislead 
others. If, on the contrary, he really has faith in the truth of 
his own statement, it may be useless to attempt to reason with 
him, and it were wiser, perhaps, to leave such a man to the 
tender care of those ministers of mercy who preside over the 
state of such as have taken leave of reason and their senses. 
The gentleman who kindly undertakes to illuminate the 
Greek Church starts off with the assumption that an unrea- 
soning credulity is the corner-stone of Spiritualism, and that 
people are prone to believe it, not because of the existence of 
any important facts illustrative of its claims, nor yet for the 
reason that the laws and relations of the human mind render 
spiritual intercourse both natural and inevitable, but especially 
because so many people have this perverse disposition to believe 
what they want to have true. I will, as far as convenient, give 
" R. AY." the benefit of putting his peculiar views in his own 
forms of expression, which — as the reader will observe from 
the examples which follow — are seldom remarkable for either 
elegance or force : 

" What we want to believe we do readily believe. This truth is the 
corner-stone of Modern Spiritualism, and on it has grown a vast structure 
of delusion and charlatanism. . . . The weak and credulous believe 
in the end what they want to believe. " 

This writer would have his readers accept of the implied 
assumption that the millions who this day acknowledge the 
just claims of Spiritualism, were not only all waiting impa- 



264 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

tiently for its advent, but were so anxious to believe, with or 
without evidence, that the trick of any juvenile juggler was 
accepted as the demonstration of a divine reality. Could 
anything be further from the real facts of the case than this 
reckless misrepresentation ? The truth is everywhere revealed, 
and, at this late day, should be known by all men, that there 
are thousands of eminent persons in the spiritual ranks who 
fought against the truth with all their powers, and until abso- 
lutely forced to yield in the unequal contest. Robert Owen, 
the most noted infidel of the last generation, may be taken as 
a representative of many who have exhausted every; device 
which a cunning skepticism could invent, and after all have 
been obliged to surrender to the Spirits. Robert Dale Owen, 
who inherited his father's stubborn unbelief, followed in the 
footsteps of his sire, and died a devout believer in Spiritualism. 
Prof. Robert Hare, M. D., of world-wide reputation as a 
scientist, determined to save certain of his credulous friends 
from disgrace and insanity ; and with this object in view he 
invented the spiri'oscope, and other apparatus, in the confident 
expectation of utterly exploding the pretensions of Spiritual- 
ism upon scientific principles. The use of his own instrument 
led to his speedy conversion. So far from wanting to be con- 
vinced of the truth of spiritual intercourse, his mind rested in 
the foregone conclusion, that the whole system was a stupend- 
ous falsehood. Intent upon exposing the fraud, he placed 
the medium in such a relation to the instrument that she 
could not possibly see the face of the revolving disk of the 
spiritoscope. With such fraud-proof conditions the index 
was made to point to the letters of the alphabet, one by one, 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 265 

when, to his utter amazement, his father said to him, " Oh, 
my son, listen to reason ! " On another occasion the spirits, ad- 
dressing an eminent lawyer in the presence of Dr. Hare, said : 

" Light is datum ng on the mind of yotir friend ; soon he will speak tru??i- 
pet-tongned to the scientific 'world, and add a new link to that chain of evi- 
dence on which our hope of 7nans salvation is founded." 

At length the stubborn skepticism of a lifetime gave way 
before the overwhelming proofs of spiritual presence, and re- 
peated demonstrations of the power of invisible beings to act 
on the subtile elements of the physical universe ; to produce 
a variety of sounds, and to move ponderable bodies by a force 
far superior to the laws of matter. The late Prof. James J. 
Mapes, LL.D., the eminent agricultural chemist, was another 
of our material philosophers who was reluctantly forced by ir- 
resistible evidence to surrender the weapons of his warfare, 
and to accept the truth, which, while it humbled his pride as 
a scientist, assured him of his immortality.* 

Some of the more distinguished English scientists and Ger- 
man philosophers have been convinced in a similar manner, 
by evidence obtained under test conditions. The writer un- 
der review unwittingly admits that there is no unbelief suffi- 
ciently ironclad to resist the force of the evidence in favor of 
the spiritual origin of the manifestations. After finding the 
corner-stone of Spiritualism in the excessive credulity of the be- 
lievers he says : 



* The present writer was intimately acquainted with Doctor Robert 
Hare and Prof. James J. Mapes, and had every opportunity to become 
familiar with their views on scientific and spiritual questions. 
12 



266 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

' ' Another class which eagerly embrace Modern Spiritualism are relig- 
ious skeptics. . . . They substitute for Christianity a belief which 
places no moral restraint upon them. . . . It is infidelity run wild 
into credulity." 

There is evidently something anomalous in the fact that the 
most credulous and, at the same time, even the most skepti- 
cal classes embrace Spiritualism ; and the phenomenon which 
this writer notes should have convinced him that there is 
something more in the subject than a clever piece of jugglery. 
But there are some people who never learn anything from ob- 
servation, and to whom childish fancies, shallow sophistries, 
profound principles, and the most significant facts, are all of 
equal importance. This Oriental Church representative ap- 
pears to belong to this class, since he attaches more impor- 
tance to his own whimsical notions than he does to the essen- 
tial principles and demonstrated facts which are now rapidly 
revolutionizing the faiths and philosophies of the whole civil- 
ized world. 

But what does this man mean when he tells the disciples of 
the Greek Church that those who embrace Spiritualism " sub- 
stitute for Christianity a belief which places no moral restraint 
upon them ? " If " R. W." does not know that this is utterly 
false, he is too ignorant to assume a leading role among relig- 
ious teachers. If he does know that this statement is forever 
at war with the facts in the case, what can he ever hope to 
gain by such shameless misrepresentation ? Spiritualism re- 
leases no man from any " moral restraint" or obligation. The 
writer under review had better go and learn of Moses, or some 
other teacher, the meaning of that provision of the moral law 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 267 

which reads thus : " Thou shalt not bear false witness against 
thy neighbor!' By giving such testimony he must ultimately 
lose his hold upon the confidence of the public. Earlier or 
later the fraud is discovered, and the unscrupulous witness is 
impeached who attempts to mislead the people. We fear that 
" R. W." has not the moral stamina required to enable him to 
tell the exact truth ; nor has he the mental illumination neces- 
sary to a clear perception of a great spiritual subject. If his 
" eye were only single/' and honestly directed to the discov- 
ery of the truth of Spiritualism, his whole nature would " be 
full of light." It is the " evil eye " that fills the man with dark- 
ness.* If it were possible to clear his inward vision, 

" Then would be closed the restless, oblique eye, 
That looks for evil, like a treacherous spy." 

After representing that thousands of keen observers visited 
the Fox Sisters in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and 
elsewhere, without being able to penetrate the mystery of the 
Rappings and other phenomena, he still insists, with dogmatic 
pertinacity, that it was all a cunning artifice to deceive the 
people ; and that the fraud succeeded on a scale so gigantic 
that it put all Munchausen story-tellers to shame. Those 
little girls kept their secret so well, and they managed their 
exhibition so skillfully, that gray-bearded philosophers were 
filled with amazement. The scientists were nonplused ; theolo- 
gians were sure the devil was in the poor little girls ; while 
the astute of every name and genus were humiliated because 
they could not see through the trick of the " two little peas- 



* See the Sermon on the Mount, by the Nazarene. 



268 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ant girls," aged respectively twelve and fifteen years. The 
honest blacksmith of Hydesville could not see it by the light 
of his forge ; and the watchful mother — herself a pious mem- 
ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church — never once suspected 
when she put the children to bed at night that she was tuck- 
ing up the devil with the little girls. According to this apoc- 
ryphal chronicler the little Foxes deceived the Old Folks for 
years, and " were too cunning for anything." Mark what the 
Greek Church historian of Spiritualism says : 

" The probability is that the simple-minded mother and father of these 
girls never knew the secret of the Rappings. Margaret has said her 
mother died believing in Spiritualism." 

Here it will be observed the writer presumes that the chil- 
dren were the inventors of a species of fathomless deviltry, 
while their parents were simple-minded and truthful people 
who, living and dying, were sincere in the belief that the mys- 
terious phenomena were produced by the Spirits of another 
world. The reader is requested to notice how all this com- 
ports with the following statement which is extracted from the 
next succeeding paragraph : 

' ' The fact remains that two little peasant girls were made, by older and 
cunning persons, the instruments of this delusion and fraud. These poor 
children — under the management of crafty adults who exercised stern con- 
trol over them* — were the real founders of Modern Spiritualism. . . . 
The whole of this monstrous superstructure . . . arose from ' that girl- 
ish trick,' at Hydesville." 

Here " R. W. " virtually assumes that those poor children 
were helpless innocents, who were forced to rap and be tricky 



* The reviewer is responsible for the emphasis. 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 269 

for a consideration, while the Old Folks, the adults of this 
family — simple-minded as they were just now represented — 
had become unprincipled knaves and entered into a league 
with Satan to carry on this infernal mischief. (It was espe- 
cially the mother and Leah, the oldest daughter, who man- 
aged the mediums.) It is represented that the girls had at 
last grown weary of " the life of deception they were leading," 
and were disposed to reform ; that one of them (Margaretta) 
" abjured .... Spiritualism " and resolved on a life of devo- 
tion to the church ; all of which reminds me of just these two 
lines in the Hymn Book, which I may not quote literally : 

" Mark what a tangled web we weave, 
When once we practice to deceive." 

The author of this last attempt to write down Spiritualism 
has not advanced above the nether extremities of the subject. 
It will surprise the reader to know that he still holds on to 
the toe-snapping theory, which we supposed all sane people had 
abandoned long ago. Indeed its author never believed his 
own hypothesis. It was the worthless invention of a trifler 
who was only qualified to burlesque a grave subject. But it 
answers the purpose of " R. W.," who in speaking of the girls 
says, "It is well known .... that they could make the same 
rapping noise with their toes ; " at the same time he discredits 
the idea that the sounds were produced in any other way. 
He never once mentions the fact that, in the presence of the 
Misses Fox, the rappings often came on the doors and walls, 
and even on the ceilings far above the heads of the mediums. 
To presume that two young ladies of modest demeanor man- 
aged to rap with their toes on the high ceilings of our hotel 



27O THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

parlors would stagger our faith more than anything we have 
observed in Spiritualism. 

That the sounds did frequently occur under such conditions 
as I have named is confirmed by the observation of thousands. 
In the presence of the family we personally witnessed a more 
startling exhibition. At the funeral of Calvin R. Brown — 
former husband of Leah, the eldest of the Fox Sisters — the 
Rappings were heard on the casket containing the remains, 
and were so distinct as to attract the attention of an assembly 
that filled the parlors of a large house. While the present 
writer was delivering the funeral oration, the spirit took occa- 
sion to express his approval of what was said by rapping with 
great emphasis, and frequently, on his coffin. During this 
surprising performance there was not a single soul — in the 
body — within six feet of the casket ! 

The writer under review represents that the late Dr. Kane, 
the. Arctic explorer — who was the accepted lover of Marga- 
retta— was for unexplained reasons extremely apprehensive of 
some possible impending evil, and that he did not conceal his 
fears in writing to the girl to whom he had engaged himself. 
" R. W." quotes the following passage from what purports to 
be one of the Doctor's love letters : 

1 ' You know I am nervous about the Rappings. I believe the only 
thing I ever was afraid of was this confounded thing being found out. I 
would not know it myself for ten thousand dollars." 

The present writer was sufficiently acquainted with Dr. 
Kane to know that he had too much nerve to tremble before 
either mortals or spirits. He was not afraid of the shades of 
departed men. No foul " demon of the waste " or " goblin 



SPIRITUALISM AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 27 1 

damned " ever shook his nerves. No ! But Dr. Kane be- 
longed to an aristocratic family, and he was an ambitious 
man. What he feared was the odium that might attach to his 
name on account of his intimate association with a Spirit-rapping 
medium I It was the apprehension of that " confounded thing 
being found out." This involves the reason why Margaretta 
" abjured Spiritualism," and for a season sought refuge — from 
" the old fools " who pursued the Spirits through her — in the 
bosom of the Mother Church. For this reason she was taken 
away from her family and sent to school during the absence 
of her eminent lover while on his last expedition to the Arctic 
regions. 

And here we may learn how a change of circumstances 
may modify the views and conduct of some men. When Dr. 
Kane returned from that expedition he went to the Astor 
House, and on waking the next morning the city papers in- 
formed him that he was famous. It was then that he con- 
ceived the idea that a marriage alliance with a Spirit-medium' 
was beneath the dignity of his family and unworthy of the 
fame he had achieved. It was his personal ambition, superior 
culture, pride of name and social distinction, rather than a 
lack of courage, in the ordinary sense, that interrupted the 
engagement, and left a confiding young woman to loneliness 
and widowhood. 

But I have already devoted more time and space to this re- 
view than the paper in The Oriental Church Magazine really 
deserves. R. W.'s claims to our attention, such as they are, 
do not depend on any merit in what he has published. His 
essay is exceedingly superficial, and reveals nothing else so 



272 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

clearly as his ignorance of the whole subject. He offers no 
important facts in illustration of his shallow views, and he as- 
signs no substantial reasons in support of his dogmatic affir- 
mations. He refers to Animal Magnetism, Clairvoyance, Po- 
larity, the Odic Force, etc. ; but we search in vain for the 
least evidence that he has any knowledge of these agents, 
faculties and forces. In his hands the terms appear to be 
cabalistic words with a veiled significance he has no power to 
comprehend. His feeble attempt to belittle a great subject 
has given us the intellectual caliber and moral status of the 
man. He alone will have occasion to regret the ultimate re- 
sults of his futile effort to obscure the light of the Spiritual 
Reformation, which he can no more hide than he can extin- 
guish the sun. 

If Father Bj erring desires to correct the errors of " R. W.,' 
and, at the same time, to enlighten the Greek Church on the 
subject of Spiritualism, perhaps he may allow his readers to 
peruse this review. 

'• S. B. Brittan. 

80 West Eleventh Street, } 
New York City. ) 



JOURNALISTIC IGNORANCE ILLUSTRATED. 

OPPOSITION OF THE NEW YORK DAILY TIMES. 

FROM THE HARTFORD (CONN.) DAILY TIMES, SEPT. 8, l88l. 

Justice and Liberality of the Hartford Times— The Moral Courage that respects the 
Truth— The New York Times— A Striking Contrast— An Expert without Expe- 
rience— Dr. Beard as a Psychological Authority — Testimony of George Ripley 
and Horace Greeley— Hollow pretensions of Doctors Beard and Hammond — 
What they Discover was long since Known to Thousands — The Times' 1 Igno- 
rance of the History of Psycho-magnetic Phenomena — Blind Faith in its soli- 
tary Witness— A Metaphysical Question— Dogmatism of the New York Times- 
Analysis and Criticism of the Editor's Views — Illustrative Examples and Expla- 
nation of Principles— Disposition of Jugglery and the Jugglers— Sciolists Dis- 
counting the Claims of Eminent Scientists — Calling the wrong Witness — Testi- 
mony of Clairvoyance to the Truth of Spiritualism. 

New York, August 30, 1881. 

To the Editor of the Hartford Times : 

YOUR metropolitan namesake quite recently published 
a lengthy editorial on the subject of Clairvoyance, in 
which the writer lampooned mediums in general and charac- 
terized Spiritualism as " a demoralizing and degrading super- 
stition." He also paraded Dr. George M. Beard as the only 
credible witness to the truth of Clairvoyance as either a real 
or possible psychological fact in human experience, and the 
reality of which the Editor accepted on the personal testimony 
alone of the one man to whom the Times attributes unerring 
judgment and oracular authority. 

The subjoined answer was prepared for and forwarded to 
the New York Times, but it was declined on the plea of in- 
12* 273 



274 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

sufficient space in its columns. That journal always has room 
enough to discuss the adverse side of the spiritual question, 
and in so doing it often shows the extreme poverty of its in- 
formation, and its utter inability to recognize either the plain- 
est principles of reciprocal justice, or the most obvious dis- 
tinctions in metaphysical philosophy. 

Knowing that the morality of journalism, as practiced in 
your office, accords to all honorable parties equal freedom in 
the discussion of great public questions, I take the liberty to 
forward this correspondence to you for publication, and have 
the honor to remain, Yours truly, 

S. B. Brittan. 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND SPIRITUALISM. 

IS DR. BEARD A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERT ? 

To the Editor of the New York Times ; 

IN your article on Clairvoyance, published in the edition 
of the 7th instant, you express the opinion that the " ex- 
periments recently made by Dr. George M. Beard do not ap- 
pear to have attracted the attention which they deserved." 
A summary disposition is then made of the long line of previ- 
ous experimenters, who, as you suggest, have appeared in un- 
interrupted succession "for the last thirty years." You observe 
that these have very frequently been "persons who have not, 
to put it mildly, commanded the confidence of thinking men." 
On the contrary, you are pleased to add the following erro- 
neous statement : 



JOURNALISTIC IGNORANCE ILLUSTRATED. 275 

"These persons have been for the most part prof essed fortune-tellers 
or traveling showmen, and when they pretended that they or their ' sub- 
jects ' could read, when blindfolded, letters placed on their foreheads, it 
was not necessary to regard these pretensions seriously. The verdict of 
all scientific men has been that ' Clairvoyance ' was simply an imposture." 



This disparaging estimate of the character and claims of all 
the earlier experimenters in this department of psychological 
science is exceedingly unjust, as I have the means of proving 
to the entire satisfaction of every candid inquirer. Some thirty 
years ago the public witnessed, at old Clinton Hall in this 
city, nightly for several consecutive weeks, such experiments 
as Dr. Beard has but recently repeated, and many others of a 
far more extraordinary character \ which he has not yet produced. 
The Tribime, Evening Post, Sun, Brooklyn Eagle, and other 
daily and weekly journals of that period, contained frequent 
and lengthy descriptive notices of many startling experiments 
performed then and there before thousands of our most intel- 
ligent citizens, and with demonstrative proofs of their genuine- 
ness. The late George Ripley, LL.D., frequently took occa- 
sion to notice with particular favor the experiments performed 
by the writer, and a lengthy statement of some of those illus- 
trations of psycho-physiological power appeared in the Ti'ibime 
with Horace Greeley's unqualified indorsement of their reality 
and importance. 

At this late day Dr. Beard and Dr. Hammond come before 
the public, not to formulate from demonstrated facts and rec- 
ognized principles a new and still more important branch of 
science ; not to explain the laws that determine the occur- 
rence of the facts ; nor yet to present us any phenomena es- 



276 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

sentially new ; but merely to repeat some of the ruder and 
less attractive experiments, already — for more than a quarter 
of a century — familiar to the observation of thousands of well- 
informed people. Anything like " a flourish of trumpets " on 
this particular occasion may be regarded as in questionable 
taste if not out of order. True, these doctors appear to en- 
tertain the notion that by their own tardy recognition of cer- 
tain well-known facts, they have placed the public under some 
obligation for services in the cause of science. But they have 
made no scientific discovery. They are most welcome to all 
the laurels they may have fairly won ; but, really, in this con- 
nection, they have discovered nothing — if we except the dogmatic 
skepticism and ignorance which so long delayed their recognition of 
the truth. 

The fact is mentioned that " Dr. Beard has been known as 
an earnest hater of what is called Spiritualism ;" also that he 
has found that there is " something in Clairvoyance." Then 
follows this cordial indorsement of his claims as a discoverer 
and demonstrator : 

" He has proved by experiments that there are persons who in certain 
circumstances can read writing — or for that matter print — merely by bring- 
ing it in contact with the skin of the forehead. There is not the slightest 
reason to doubt his report. When a chemist of character and ability tells 
us that he has made an experiment and has obtained certain results, we 
accept his assertion, and the experiments made by Dr. Beard are entitled 
to a like reception. We may consider that it has been fully established 
that a young woman, whose eyes Dr. Beard had carefully bandaged, was 
able to read a page of writing that was laid on her forehead." 

Why is Dr. Beard regarded as the man who has established 
the fact of Clairvoyance on a scientific basis ? Why should 



JOURNALISTIC IGNORANCE ILLUSTRATED. 27/ 

he be credited with the demonstration of the truth that some 
persons have a faculty of vision which does not depend on the 
sensibility of the optic nerve, or in any way on the organic in- 
struments of sight ; and that this faculty is wholly independ- 
ent of natural light and every form of artificial illumination ? 
If the man who, so long ago, from the standpoint of physical 
science, decided that no such faculty belongs to our human 
nature, and that the reported instances involve physiological, 
optical and other impossibilities, why is he just now pushed 
into such prominence as the first reliable witness to the truth 
he has so long disputed ? If years ago, and without investiga- 
tion, he put forward his arbitrary assumption that clear sight, 
without the use of the organic instruments of vision, was and 
is an impossible function of human nature, what possible con- 
sequence can we attach to his more recent spasmodic conclu- 
sion to the contrary ? What superior qualifications does Dr. 
Beard possess that insures his cordial recognition as the only 
infallible witness to the truth of Clairvoyance ? 

I do not press these questions because I have any disposi- 
tion to be hypercritical ; but you will pardon me for suggest- 
ing, that manv of vour readers may infer that Dr. Beard de- 
rives his unequaled distinction in this connection from the fact 
that he is the " earnest hater of what is called Spiritualism" 
But must a man hate Spiritualism to be able to tell the truth 
about Clairvoyance ? On the contrary, he can not be a com- 
petent investigator of any phenomena of cognate character so 
long as his prejudice against Spiritualism amounts to hatred. 
Indeed, the man who hates anything in the Universe, or any 
phenomena which may possibly occur under the divine econ- 



278 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

omy of the natural world, can never be a philosopher in any 
worthy sense. Moreover, in the nature of the case, such a 
man must make a very poor scientist. 

In this department of scientific research Dr. Beard has not 
left his foot-prints. He has made no discovery, and he is not 
likely to acquire any such distinction. All that can be said 
is, that a great truth has at length overcome his determined 
opposition and gained an unwilling recognition. He is not a 
true lover of Nature, who, while engaged in profound studies, 
never loses sight of himself and the narrow aims of personal 
ambition. He only seeks for confirmation of a foregone con- 
clusion, and strives to bend the facts and laws of Nature to 
his selfish purpose. The prejudice of such a man will always 
fetter his reason, color and cloud his observations, warp his 
judgment, and thus disfigure and obscure the truth. 

The conservation of our self-love is not always compatible 
with truth and the highest human interests, and it is well if we 
are made to realize that the essential facts, in any possible case, 
by no means depend upon our reluctant recognition of their 
existence. Dr. Beard has of late been taught this wholesome 
lesson. In spite of his determined efforts to maintain his old 
position, he has been cast down from the tall pedestal of his 
proud unbelief and made to see " something in Clairvoyance." 
He does not yet see anything in Spiritualism, but he will here- 
after. At present he is in the condition of that school-boy 
who believed in the multiplication table, but had no faith in 
the rule of three. The little boy had never ciphered so far, 
and hence it remained for him to have his faith established in 
the rule of arithmetical proportion. If Dr. Beard lives long, 



JOURNALISTIC IGNORANCE ILLUSTRATED. 2 ~Z) 

he ~11 hive 2 l2rre: exyerien:e :.v.i 2 ripe: ;-;cpei:. Time 
will hemhle :he s:ienns: :; rehmkinr. hi 5 2m :22m rrerensiens. 
mi z-iz'.i him 2: lis: :: ::::.:: : 1: me mmnd ;r:ilem= ::' 
the Spiritual Philosophy. 

The condition of mind which you ascribe to Dr. Be 2nd. in 
his relation to Spiritualism, is not only abnormal, but it is one 
:'.::.: reniers dim :m mnsninile — rness. z.~i 2 :yie;n:n2:le 
;:::: ::' my ;den:men2 ie'endmr :n me smlrimnl ::::::_- 
rim ::' mm. F:mm2:ely ~e me n:: le:i w-idmm s:me rnd: 
on this question and guidance to a rational conclusion. The 
: ::::::: sense :: ziikzi: 2nd :ie ynrlsyridence :: ill civil- 
:~el : : ims hive se::lei me niesrim en 2 :':uzc-rl:z i.22: is 
nr. likely :: he iismdred The nmn who his rreyiirei 2. 
case, civil or criminal, can not be accepted as 2. juror; and 
simnli i: he nmie :■: 2"-;: .hi: 2 wimess in 2 felmy hi-i 1 
pezmmd immei ::' me y:;-:::: 2: me : .::. he ~; nil eirher n:; 
he -11:— ei :: :es:ify. :: :he ::_:: ■:.ii mnrre me yiry n:: 
to convict on such evidence. Such, however, are the most 
::n5m:r:r> wimesses imim: Siirimmdsm. 2nd :•:" rris dmss 
i:e :he 5el:-::n5rri:ei mines ::' i:s dmims. 2m::m _:m mm 
eminent i::::rs ::" me ii me 2nd mvmiry 

Ym 2::reheni :1m: lenmn mmmmn: cmse:ren:es will 
::11:~ :de 1 .2 h : r 5 ::" :he l;.:es: eniermeme: in my mrimmni 
s:ien:e. Perm:: me :: mnke 2 in—he? reference :: y:nr 
2m:le. :::m whim 1 emm:: :he :: 11: wing : 

- ; s-~r-: ::' :z± :\i:: :'--.: :le -— - .-- z:: u7-:~ — zner — l:!;-; 

— = - :i : ±£ senses. 7-e -trs:z w- : rezis -:ri= wrirre:: :z 3. see: ::' 
77 - r ::I£e-£ 7.- i~i mif :~ ±e ::re-tii. ices n:: -erceive ±.:;r~:ris 
... r t r. s e ::' sir-: :r ±1: ::' :;-;.-' 



280 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

Pardon me if I suggest that the mind never acts on matter 
through the senses. It is the opposite of this proposition that 
expresses the exact truth. The mind is constantly acted up- 
on through the organic instruments of sensation by all the ele- 
ments, forms and forces of the external world. All the simple 
and complex sensorial impressions of which the nervous sys- 
tem is capable are thus produced. On more mature reflection 
I feel quite sure you will agree with me, that the senses and 
their corporeal instruments are merely receptive. They receive 
impressions and convey them to the mind as the visible images 
of material objects are reflected in a mirror. These are the 
open channels through which we derive all our information 
respecting the outward creation ; while the human mind acts 
on the tangible substances and organic forms of the world through 
the will and the muscles of voluntary motion. We may see, hear, 
smell, taste and touch, without changing the elements and 
forms which produce these impressions in any appreciable 
degree. On the contrary, these sensations do perpetually 
modify the conditions and functions of mind, and through 
the reflex action of its faculties, the phenomena of life and 
all the conditions of our moral and physical existence. 

When you affirm that " the person who reads words written 
on a sheet of paper folded up and laid on the forehead does 
not perceive those words with the sense of sight," you appear 
to confound sight, which is a faculty of the spirit, with the 
organic instruments of vision, which perish with the body. 
This is the common mistake of all philosophers who take the 
materialistic view of human nature. They fail to discover the 
human spirit by their material instruments and methods, and 



JOURNALISTIC IGNORANCE ILLUSTRATED. 28 1 

hence conclude that it has no existence. The surgeon can- 
not, find it with his scalpel, and the chemist never sees it in his 
retort ; ergo, there is no spirit. But Clairvoyance is none the 
less actual sight because the subject is able to dispense with 
the physical instruments of vision. 

You express the confident opinion that Clairvoyance " fur- 
nishes an intelligible and sufficient explanation of the so-called 
phenomena of Spiritualism." Will you permit me to suggest 
that such a conclusion can only rest on careless or otherwise 
insufficient observation, since undoubtedly nine-tenths of the 
phenomena of Spiritualism are intrinsically of such a nature 
as to admit of no such explanation. A vast variety of sounds 
are produced by the invisible powers, and it must be admitted 
that sounds do not appeal to the sense of sight, whether exer- 
cised through the physical organs or otherwise. For this suf- 
ficient reason we cannot refer any of the mysterious sounds to 
Clairvoyance. Then very heavy bodies are often moved with 
great force. We have orthodox authority for saying that the 
family Bible was repeatedly thrown by invisible hands at the 
venerable head of the Rev. Eliakim Phelps, D.D., at Strat- 
ford, while the good Doctor was praying for deliverance from 
what he regarded as an infernal infestation. But as Clairvoy- 
ance {clear sight ) is neither a subtile electro-chemical nor a 
mechanical force, it has no power to move a ponderable body; 
hence it follows that this passive faculty of vision, physical 
and spiritual, will not enable us to account for any one of the 
phenomena of this class. This course of reasoning could be 
further illustrated and enforced by the citation of a thousand 
examples, and by an array of witnesses from all the learned 



282 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

professions, whose presence alone would silence skepticism, if 
they failed to convince the skeptics. 

You are pleased to say that "nine-tenths of Spiritualism 
are trickery." On the contrary, permit me to remark that 
the ttickery, whether much or little, is no part of Spiritualism. 
We might as well affirm that New York State annually produces 
1,000,000 bushels of wheat, but that 900,000 bushels of the 
same are tares ! As, therefore, the tricks of unprincipled jug- 
glers form no part of the phenomena of Spiritualism, I re- 
spectfully suggest that they be left out of your estimate. If 
the assayer should- be so fortunate as to find forty pounds of 
the precious metals in a ton of ore, he would never think of 
including the 2,200 pounds of dross in his statement. Leave 
out the bogus mediums and also the tricks of the jugglers. 
When the Secretary of the Treasury figures up the amount 
of the national currency he never includes the counterfeits. 

In the following passage you still further dignify the name 
and exaggerate the services of Dr. Beard as much as you dis- 
honor the claims of each of his predecessors, and all of his 
contemporaries who have made a careful study of the whole 
subject for a much longer period than he has been before the 
public : 

"Dr. Beard's experiments certainly give us reason to believe that he 
has found the clew to the mystery which is the stock in trade of spiritual 
mediums, and if he has really done this, he has done an immense service 
in overthrowing what has proved to be a demoralizing and degrading 
superstition. It is hoped that Dr. Beard and other scientific men will 
continue to investigate the field which has hitherto been abandoned to 
charlatans." 

I shall, perhaps, be pardoned for saying that " the clew to 



JOURNALISTIC IGNORANCE ILLUSTRATED. 283 

the mystery " was discovered some time before Dr. Beard was 
born, and that his life and labors have done nothing to illumi- 
nate the subject. Nor has he discovered anything else of con- 
sequence except the fact that neither the Spirits nor the laws 
of Nature respect the haughty presumption of mere sciolists. 
In presence of the real facts as they are known to thousands, 
his eminent services (?) disappear like the dissolving views, 
without leaving to the doctor's disciples so much as a grateful 
memory of his imaginary achievements. Moreover, Spiritual- 
ism was never " a demoralizing and degrading superstition," 
unless the noblest philosophy and the most vital facts of all 
systems of religion are to be so classified. Nevertheless, Dr. 
Beard is not only recognized as a scientific psychological ex- 
pert, but hailed as a public benefactor ; at the same time such 
men as Dr. Robert Hare, inventor of the oxyhydrogen blow- 
pipe, and Professor James J. Mapes, of this country ; Crookes, 
of the London Journal of Science, Wallace, Varley, and Cox, 
of England, the wisest philosophers of Germany, and many 
others scarcely less distinguished, in every part of Continental 
Europe, are by implication, characterized as " charlatans !" 

In conclusion, I observe that you have summoned a most 
important witness in this trial of Spiritualism versus Material- 
ism. It is Clairvoyance that just now occupies the stand, and 
may it please the court we are ready to listen to the testimony. 
When a witness is summoned by the prosecution it is not the 
privilege of the counsel for the same to hustle him out and 
away from the tribunal without first giving the defense an 
opportunity for a proper cross-examination. Now, what has 
Clairvoyance to say about Spiritualism ? Why, it is not at all 



284 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

likely that a single man, woman or child can be found on 
earth, whose case affords the clearest evidence of the posses- 
sion of this gift, that does not at the same time affirm — there 
is a Spirit-world and a corresponding life for man ; that they see 
the Spirits and recognize their kindred j witness their coming 
and going, and discover what they are doing; and it is everywhere 
the unequivocal testimony of this witness that the clairvoyant can 
and does act as a familiar messenger between Spirits and mortals. 
There are occasional exceptions in which the vision is limited 
to mundane affairs ; but the concurrent testimony of all natu- 
ral seers and magnetic clairvoyants is that they see spiritual as 
well as material things. Now what will the " earnest haters 
of Spiritualism " do with this fact ? Will the Times and Dr. 
Beard accept this testimony of Clairvoyance, or will they im- 
peach the credibility of their own witness ? 

Yours respectfully, 

S. B. Brittan. 
New York, July, 1881. 

Dr. Brittan's reply to the editorial position of the New York Times, 
concerning Dr. Beard and his assumptions in relation to Clairvoyance as 
a proved reality, will be found to be as keen and effective as it is logical 
and courteous. The Times, not liking the attitude in which it found it- 
self left by Dr. Brittan, refused to publish his reply. 

Hartford Daily Times, 



DECLINING THE RESPONSIBILITY. 

IMMUNITY FOR OLD FALSEHOODS. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT. 

Policy of the Newspaper Press— False Charge against Spiritualists— John A. Lan- 
sing's pious Speculation— " Devouring Widows' Houses "—Religious Fanatics 
with an Eye to Business— How Mrs.Upham was made a Victim— Fraud under the 
Cloak of Religion — Drawing the Papers in the Lord — Lunacy or Hypocrisy — 
Asbury Park JournaVs Testimony — A Fair Confederate — Mary at the Ocean 
Grove Meetings — Parties all Members of Orthodox Churches. 

Lies have many legs, and error is seldom tongue-tied. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

LET us presume that, in respect to the reparation of in- 
juries, " better late than never " is a sound maxim in 
morals ; but in the conduct of a public journal it seems to be 
obsolescent. When a lie is ten or fifteen days old, and has 
obtained certain currency, it is presumed to have a right of way 
which may not be disputed. The subjoined letter was re- 
spectfully declined for the reason that too much time had 
elapsed since this long-legged tarantula started on its journey. 
Thus, in the policy of the press, there comes a time when it 
is too late to right a wrong, because it is not accounted good 
journalism to revive old things. As defined by the present in- 
stance, that time is about two weeks, beyond which all lies 
that have contrived to run fast and escape detection must 
continue to have the freedom of the press. We acknowledge 
the right of the several professions to be governed by their 

285 



286 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

own laws, whether the same be wise or otherwise,* and we are 
pleased to acknowledge that the Tribune has of late been very- 
fair in its treatment of Spiritualism, 

S. B. B. 



SPIRITUALISM NOT RESPONSIBLE. 

THE CASE OF REV. JOHN A. LANSING. 

To the Editor of the Tribune : 

IN a recent issue of your paper it was reported that " A 
Spiritualist and his confederate " had managed to swindle 
the widow of the late Prof. Thomas C. Upham out of the sum 
of $14,000. The persons named in this business are all repre- 
sented to be Spiritualists, when the truth is, not one of them 
can, with any show of propriety, be so classified. Mrs. Upham 
is a well-known lady of great moral worth and religious influ- 
ence ; but for years she has opposed Spiritualism with a deter- 
mination that did not permit a spiritual paper to find a place 
in her household. And where is the evidence that either Rev. 
John A. Lansing or his fair confederate believed in Spiritual- 
ism ? In your report the Rev. John is said to be a Methodist, 
but I am informed on excellent authority that he is a Baptist. 
This is, however, quite unimportant. That he is regularly 
commissioned as a minister of the Christian church is not dis- 
puted ; but it does not appear from any evidence I have been 
able to obtain that he either called himself a Spiritualist or 
was willing to be so designated. 

Let me remind you that the assumed identification of this 



DECLINING THE RESPONSIBILITY. 287 

person with Spiritualists is certainly not supported by the 
annunciation of his own peculiar views, as the same find ex- 
pression in the extract which you published from one of his 
letters to Mrs. Upham. To vindicate this opinion I will here 
introduce the extract, from which it must be sufficiently evi- 
dent that he was never a Spiritualist in any sense likely to 
command the recognition of rational believers : 

" I cannot meet with your demands to-night. The plans and arrange- 
ments were all made in God, and I can only move as he commands. Can 
you not follow the word of God as it came to you first ? You know the 
word to be of God now as you did then. Follow it as you did then. The 
papers are all drawn in God and are at his disposal. 

"Yours in Christ Jesus, the Lord God. Amen. 

"J. A. Lansing." 

Now this godly gabble may not prove that the author was 
and is an arrant hypocrite and mercenary deceiver ; but if not, 
it is at least evidence that he is the victim of a religious fanat- 
icism amounting to lunacy. In neither case is Spiritualism in 
any way responsible for his irrational views and apparently 
criminal conduct. He does not so much as recognize the 
possible agency of a single departed human soul in the affairs 
of this world. On the contrary, he attributes everything — 
all his own " plans and arrangements " — to the Supreme Being, 
not merely as the first cause, but as the proximate agent in 
every human action. This priestly pretender and ex officio 
minister of Christ says, " I can only move as he [the Lord] 
commands." In his opinion God does everything by a direct 
and miraculous intervention in human affairs. He entertains 
the theocratic view of the divine government, and insists that 
his own business papers are no less God-given than the Mosaic 



288 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

tablets. To use his own wild, fanatical language, they are " all 
drawn in God/" 

To say that this pious mountebank is a Spiritualist is to ut- 
terly disregard his own testimony and all the evidence in the 
case. This man does not appear to have any views in com- 
mon with one sane Spiritualist on earth. I write this after 
thirty-five years of uninterrupted intercourse with this people. 
In this long experience the undersigned has not met with one 
who entertained the notion that our ordinary human arrange- 
ments, volitions and movements, motives and methods of ac- 
tion, are all subject to the constant and direct interposition of 
a divine personality. Moreover, Spiritualists neither find nor 
look for " the word of God " in the several parts of speech ; 
it can not be shut up in nouns, verbs and adjectives ; nor have 
we any idea that Deity has anything especially to do with the 
business of drawing legal and illegal papers for either dishonest 
or deluded clergymen, who may be striving by unlawful means 
to possess the property of some pure-minded, unsuspicious 
widow of an honest and eminent Spiritualist. 

The Asbury Park Journal, whose editor is quite likely to 
be well informed, says this is a case of " religious fanaticism " 
with a special adaptation to " business." I also learn — from a 
very intelligent professional gentleman acquainted with the 
family, that Miss Mary C. Ward is a pious maiden lady of 
mature years ; that she received her early religious instruction 
in the Presbyterian church, of which her father has been an 
official member ; that she trusts in God, believes in a personal 
devil, and has no faith in other Spirits ; that she has been 
conspicuous at the Union Church meetings at Ocean Grove, 



DECLINING THE RESPONSIBILITY. 289 

which would not have been permitted had she been known 
to be a Spiritualist. 

The Rev. Mr. Lansing finishes his pious cant by subscrib- 
ing himself, "Yours in Christ Jesus, the Lord God, Amen !" 
The Spiritualists who believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the 
Supreme Deity are few and far between ; but the pious indi- 
vidual who is characterized in your report as a swindler, is 
strictly orthodox in the prominence he gives to the common 
faith of the Church. The truth appears to be that a lady, of 
spotless character and reputation, has been deprived of the es- 
tate left her by her excellent husband, who was an eminent Spirit- 
ualist, and this has been accomplished through the agency of an 
ordained minister of the Christian Church ! 

Let us be just to the accused parties. We can neither meas- 
ure the wrong that has been done, nor intelligently estimate 
the moral delinquency of the principal in this transaction, 
until the case has been fairly adjudicated. But if other peo- 
ple are to be held responsible for the conduct of this man, 
justice will be promoted by allowing the grave responsibility 
to rest precisely where it legitimately belongs. All attempts to 
dishonor the truth of Spiritualism and its just claims to the 
world's faith are worse than vain. The disciples of the Spirit- 
ual Philosophy are. everywhere firm, always in principia, non 
homines. 

In the love of Truth and Justice, 

S. B. Brittan. 
29 Broad Street, Newark, N. J., ) 
Oct. 21, 1881. ) 

13 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 

AN EDITOR DEFENDS SATAN AND DEFAMES SPIRITUALISTS. 

WRITTEN FOR THE U HERALD AND GLOBE," RUTLAND, VERMONT. 

Spiritualists Dishonored and the Devil Defended— Important Concessions by Prof • 
Phelps— Great Extremity of the Theologians— The Congregationalist as a City of 
Refuge— Poisoned Arrows from a Bomb-proof Retreat — Ignorance and Super- 
naturalism— Exploded by a Philosophical Explanation— Angels Imprisoned and 
' Devils Emancipated— Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit— Bold Assumptions 
and Rotten Logic— Evidence Worthless when the Witness knows nothing— Im- 
patience and Intolerance— Real Facts Rejected and the true Witnesses Defamed 
— Power of the Spirits— Counterfeits are Evidence of Something Genuine— Theory 
of Jugglery — Hermann and Heller — Are only feeble natures Inspired — Sick Peo- 
ple of Biblicai History — Modern Illustrations— Visit from the Author of the 
Raven — Experience of Death and Reception in the Spirit- World— Song of the 
Angel Lenore— A Spirit-Maiden's Song of Shelley— Coleridge Wakes the Chords 
of his Orphic Lyre. 

To the Editor of the Herald and Globe : 

A NUMBER of parties who do not approve of the spirit 
manifested in the editorial leader which appeared in 
your issue of the 9th instant — under the title of " Injustice 
to the Devil " — have forwarded copies of the paper to my ad- 
dress, and letters urging me to reply to your article. They 
seeem to think the spirit that inspired your editorial has not 
made much progress, and really needs to be enlightened. The 
offensive terms employed in your characterization of Spiritual- 
ism and this unscrupulous attempt to defame a great people, 
numbering millions in every part of the civilized world, really 
place you without the, pale of civil and rational controversy 
on this particular subject. For this reason your article would, 

290 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 29 1 

under other circumstances, have elicited no response from me; 
but I yield to the earnest solicitation of a number of your 
readers in respectfully offering the following answer for publi- 
cation in your columns. 

What does the title of your editorial imply ? Evidently, 
neither more nor less than this : That the Devil himself is ais- 
ho?iored in having the Spiritual Manifestatio?is referred to his 
agency. For aught we know to the contrary, your knowledge 
of the personage whose claims to justice and respectability 
you seem disposed to vindicate, may be full and comprehen- 
sive ; but your article will clearly prove to the minds of all 
thoughtful observers, that so far as you have been informed 
at all upon the subject of Spiritualism, you have been misin- 
formed. That you may have no cause to complain of injus- 
tice at my hands, I will not restate the substance of your 
views in my own language, but will now and hereafter repro- 
duce portions of your article : 

" Prof. Phelps is presumably both a learned and able man, but his arti- 
cle is a melancholy proof that a man may be both able and learned in a 
scholastic sense, and yet be a very credulous person. Prof. Phelps con- 
cedes the genuine supernatural origin of the so-called modern ' spirit 
manifestations ' when he pronounces them altogether diabolical. Prof. 
Phelps is quoted as urging all Christians to combat it to the extent of 
their power, and. in order to do so, advises them to induce their congre- 
gations to have firm faith in the existence of a devil, who is the rival and 
enemy of God. Prof. Phelps clearly believes that God allows evil spirits 
to communicate, but affords no opportunities to good ones. Prof. Phelps 
concedes altogether too much to the modern mummery of spiritism when 
he accepts it as of supernatural origin." 

It is true that Prof. Austin Phelps accepts at hast a portion 
of the essential facts of Spiritualism ; it is also true that he 



292 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

concedes the still more important fact of their spiritual origin; 
but you are greatly mistaken in presuming that these admis- 
sions are the result of excessive credulity. On the contrary, 
no more reluctant and ungracious witness was ever found on 
the stand in the interest of truth. His unwilling testimony is 
given because he can no longer resist the conviction that 
fastens upon every faculty of his mind. He assures us, in 
substance, that only at last when the hypothesis of jugglery 
must be forever abandoned ; when all the material theories 
have, one after another, exploded like so many rockets in the 
air ; when the spirit of popular inquiry besieges the pulpit, 
boldly questions the divine authority of its mission, and can 
no longer be resisted ; and science, alas, is dumb as a pagan 
idol— only in this great extremity has a half-confession of the 
truth been wrung from the intellect and conscience of the man. 
Fearing the storm that might follow the recitation of his testi- 
mony he takes shelter under the theological casemates, or the 
bomb-proof chambers of the Congregationalist, within which 
no Spiritualist is ever permitted to appear. This brave cham- 
pion warns his brethren to be industrious in fulminating 
the necessary anathemas and in hurling their rusty and point- 
less javelins, not only at old Satan himself and his ancient 
fallen angels, but at all his new recruits, every little demon, 
in and out of hell, and all the modern devices of the Evil 
One. 

From the secure retreat before mentioned Professor Phelps 
aims his envenomed shafts at the spiritual hosts of two worlds, 
who mind them about as much as a grand army in its tri- 
umphal march would heed the ephemera whose little hum lasts 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 293 

for a day and is no more. This eminent teacher in the or- 
thodox school of modern divinity — who knows more about this 
subject than the writer in your paper — makes his admissions 
because he can not help it ; and for this he stands credited by 
the Herald and Globe with being a learned simpleton who, 
for lack of either reason or nerve, surrenders the citadel of the 
argument to the Spiritualists. 

You appear to entertain the common notion that the Spirit- 
ualists, not less than Dr. Phelps, claim a supernatural origin 
for the modern phenomena, when, in fact, they set up no such 
claim. We can not remember how many times we have ex- 
ploded this false assumption, in each case pursuing a different 
line of argument. Let us dispose of it once more, in this case 
reasoning from premises not before employed ; and this may 
suffice until the next man, who knows little or nothing of Spir- 
itualism, shall attempt to write it down. 

Now be it known that we claim a spiritual, but not a super- 
natural origin for these Manifestations. Nature has several 
general departments or kingdoms, and these admit of many 
subdivisions. The mineral kingdom may be regarded as the 
foundation at least of so much of the cosmical superstructure 
of this world as comes within the field of our mortal observa- 
tion. Vegetation does not belong to the mineral kingdom ; 
but it is no less natural on that account. The realm of ani- 
mated nature rises still above, but is quite as natural as the 
mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Man, the last and crowning 
work of the Love and Wisdom which conceive and fashion all, 
is every way as natural as any of the inferior developments of 
the physical world. Cosmos comprehends the vast temple of 



294 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

universal being from the foundation in subterranean darkness 
to the illuminated dome where the human mind, clothed with 
the majesty of divinity, occupies its throne " but a little lower 
than the angels." 

And here I must especially emphasize this fact, namely, the 
human mind, not less than the body, is a part of the Divine nat- 
ural economy of universal being. Mind being a component part 
of Nature, it follows that its faculties, affections and functions 
are absolutely natural. The power of mental impregnation and 
the generation of thought ; the ability to clothe ideas with ap- 
propriate forms of expression, whether by the use of articulate 
sounds, written characters, or the more primitive language of 
a universal symbolism, are always and everywhere but natural 
faculties and functions of human intelligence. 

Nor are these powers any less natural when the mind leaves 
the corporeal frame, and enters on its higher and more com- 
plete existence in the Spirit-worid. The butterfly that spreads 
its iridescent wings in the clear morning air, and sparkles in 
the sunshine, is " a thing of beauty," but not less natural than 
the poor grub that but yesterday crawled in the dust. As the 
normal exercise of the mental and moral faculties of man, in 
any and every sphere of his existence, must be altogether nat- 
ural, it follows of necessity that such manifestations of intelli- 
gence from departed souls can never be super-natural in the 
sense implied in your article, and virtually accepted by Prof. 
Phelps. It is only necessary to open the eyes of the under- 
standing to a perception of the spiritual side of man and the 
natural world, and the narrow walls that limit our recognition 
of Nature to the mere objects of sensuous observation will 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 295 

suddenly melt and vanish like dissolving views in the clear 
light of the Spiritual Morning. 

You very properly point out the fundamental absurdity in 
the position of Prof. Phelps, in his assumption that " God al- 
lows evil spirits to communicate, but affords no opportunities 
to good ones." This must even shock the reverence of the 
heathen, and all our Christian infidels who care to preserve a 
decent seeming. In the homiletics of orthodox pulpits we are 
often lectured on irreverence and the sin of blasphemy, one 
form of which it is said can never be forgiven, here or else- 
where, now or hereafter. But will some one be kind enough 
to define the particular form of blasphemy that is more shock- 
ing and shameless than the peculiar phase that bears the sign- 
manual of Prof. Phelps and the indorsement of the Andover 
school of popular divinity ? They represent that the All- wise 
and loving Father transports all the pure spirits and holy an- 
gels (messengers) to some far-away heaven, where their free- 
dom is so restrained that they are not permitted to go out on 
errands of mercy ; that we poor mortals are so far beneath 
and beyond the utmost reach of their loving sympathies that 
no one of them may ever come to us, even in the seasons of 
our greatest peril. 

And then it is further maintained that the Supreme Being — 
this wise and merciful Father of all souls — has permitted a 
great upheaval in the infernal regions, and allowed Satan, the 
chief sheriff of the under world, to make a general jail-deliv- 
ery of the prisoners in hell ! If we may credit these religious 
teachers, the armies of Satan are thus mercilessly let loose 
upon the God-forsaken inhabitants of this poor world, to the 



296 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

end that we may be cruelly deceived by their subtle sophis- 
tries, blinded and stupefied by their diabolical arts, and so 
fatally led astray as to render our everlasting damnation sure ! 
(It may be pertinent to inquire if such religious literature is fit 
to be circulated in the mails ?) Oh, if this is not " the unpar- 
donable sin," so long preached at us with such terrible vehe- 
mence — the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of the divine Love 
and Wisdom — surely, the grim multitude of vulgar blasphem- 
ers ; all men who profane sacred things, and the hoary infi- 
dels who commit sacrilege in the temples of Liberty and Re- 
ligion, may take courage ; even while sharp detectives are 
looking among sinners outside of the Church for one suitable 
illustration of the subject. 

Here is another specimen of your dogmatism which claims 
a passing notice in this connection. It is in your own words, 
and it ought to be apparent to every mind that has any basis in 
the first principles of a scientific philosophy, that it can neither 
be reconciled with reason nor the facts : 

"Everybody knows more than anybody, as Lincoln said — and the vast 
mass of intelligent human testimony is overwhelmingly against the truth 
of the proposition that spirits, evil or good, have ever returned to this 
earth and held any sort of communication with mortals." 

Allow me to say that your position is unsound, and your 
statement can not be defended upon any recognized principles 
of logical reasoning. It is an easy task to expose the shallow 
sophistry that lurks under the specious covering of your words. 
We never accept as a witness — however willing he may be to 
testify — the man who knows nothing of the case that is on trial. 
Should a number of men who never met James A. Garfield, 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 2Q)*] 

and were never in Washington, go there this week and insist 
on giving testimony to the facts in the great case now before 
the criminal court in that City, they would be instantly ad- 
monished to go about their business. If they were persistent 
in demanding recognition, they would be lodged in prison for 
contempt, or sent to the nearest lunatic asylum. Before we 
can accept any man as a witness, for or against our cause, he 
must know something about it. Only the enemies of Spiritualism 
are crazy enough to give positive testimony without being 
qualified by the smallest knowledge of the subject. I intend 
no special or personal application of my words when I say, 
in general terms, that upon the hollow claims of all conceited 
pretenders to knowledge we may write the significant word 
which the grand juries used to indorse on the forms of indict- 
ment when the evidence was insufficient to warrant the finding 
of a true bill. That single expressive word was — ignoramus. 
On this subject as truly as on every question of language, 
science, art, political economy and jurisprudence, those who 
really know nothing can surely have nothing to say worthy of 
public attention. 

Taking my stand on the self-evident proposition that those 
who are utterly destitute of a knowledge of Spiritualism can 
have nothing to communicate to others, I rule out the great 
multitude who, having no experience of their own, have never 
investigated this subject. Of the millions, who through all 
the historic ages, have had some views, more or less clearly 
defined, of spiritual things, it will be found, on careful inquiry, 
that the preponderance of evidence is altogether in our favor. 
The question, " What is truth ? " is not likely to be finally 
13* 



298 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

settled by a popular vote, at least in our day; but there can 
be no doubt that, among all those who have possessed some 
knowledge of the subject, an immense majority have believed 
that Spirits, high and low, of many degrees of intellectual cul- 
ture and moral development, have visited the earth and, in 
one way or another, revealed their presence to the senses and 
the souls of men. 

You talk at random about the impostures and exposures of 
" the most famous mediums ; " of their " arbitrary conditions 
of darkness," and gravely suggest the necessity for " weighing 
the evidence" which, by the way, you never do. On the con- 
trary, you boldly dispute the possible existence of any real 
facts ; you libel the mediums, many of whom are pious old 
souls who daily pray for divine guidance ; not a few are fair 
ladies of blameless lives ; and many more are young (some are 
in the cradle), innocent and spotless as the sweet messengers 
of morning whose footprints scintillate upon the mountains. 
You show that Pope was right in saying : 

11 Some wicked wits have libeled all the fair." 

Are you not one of the objects of the poet's impeachment, 
since you question the integrity of all the witnesses, and pub- 
licly denounce the whole subject as false and devilish "in the 
sense that all deceit is diabolical ? " You go on with the un- 
qualified expression of your earnest and immeasurable con- 
tempt, in your own peculiar style, as will appear from the sub- 
joined extract, and are duly credited with that supreme fidelity 
which sacrifices nothing of conviction to the amenities of polite 
discussion : 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 299 

" Of course these exposures are of no effect upon those deluded and il- 
logical beings who are willing to accept the astounding assumption of 
Spirit manifestations on evidence too cheap and threadbare to hang a dog 
with a half-witted jury ; but such exposures and the absurd system of 
checks and conditions which enable any mediocre mountebank to perform 
miracles, ought to carry weight enough with an able man of large learn- 
ing, like Prof. Phelps, and save him from so stupid a concession to Spirit 
manifestations." 

And this is the way you dispose of evidence. You make no 
attempt to analyze the phenomena. Instead of looking at the 
facts in a candid and dispassionate manner, you shut up your 
eyes and give vent to your impatience and intolerance. You 
stop your ears when the witnesses speak, and all the while 
keep on piping the same old story of fraud, jugglery and delu- 
sion. The attempt to mislead the people, by assuring them 
that Spiritualists rest the claims of the whole subject on " evi- 
dence too cheap and threadbare to hang a dog with a half- 
witted jury," will not succeed, either in or out of Rutland, for 
the obvious reason that the public is too well informed to ac- 
cept your statement. You make haste to deny the power of 
human Spirits to come to this world, when there is no evidence 
to prove that they ever went away. As you have raised the 
question of the capacity of the immortals to travel, a gifted 
Spirit shall answer you from the other world in the following 
suggestive lines : 

' This is the power immortal Spirits have 
In their serene pavilion of delight :• 
The winged mind outstrips the laggard sun ; 
The heart flies swift as lightning from a star ; 
Attraction is the soul's impelling force ; 
Desire, the charioteer of Destiny." 

The evidence in the case seems to establish the fact that 



300 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

the lives 01 all human spirits begin on the earth, and as there 
is no evidence to show that they necessarily go away when 
they leave their mortal bodies, the logical presumption is that 
they are still here, or may be at pleasure. The fact that we 
cannot see them proves nothing to the point. There are many 
forms of attenuated matter, or sublimated substance, which 
escape the observation of the man whose powers of perception 
are limited to the capacity of the physical organs of sensation. 
We can not even see the air we breathe, but we never doubt 
its existence. But if it may be supposed that the Spirits are 
here, you still, somewhat arrogantly, dispute their capacity to 
give any intelligent communication, or to otherwise make a 
revelation of their presence. It is evident that Justice never 
held the scales in which you are accustomed to weigh the evi- 
dences of Spiritualism. Will you not be persuaded, my dear 
Sir, to stop dogmatizing from the know-nothing standpoint, 
give your attention to the witnesses, and respectfully weigh 
their testimony ? Here again you reason blindly as usual : 

" It is no answer that thousands of worthy people believe in the 'mani- 
festations,' for thousands of worthy people are full of delusions that sci- 
ence scouts and philosophy derides. Thousands of worthy people have 
been imposed upon by counterfeit notes, have accepted forgeries as genu- 
ine signatures, and thousands of worthy people would be very dangerous 
persons to place on the judge's bench to try any case that demanded 
sound, discriminating judgment, the capacity to sift and weigh evidence." 

Weighed in your own balance you are found wanting. So 
far you have neither exhibited a " sound, discriminating judg- 
ment " in this case, nor " the capacity to sift and weigh evi- 
dence." Indeed, you have shown no disposition to perform 
these functions of a rational mind, and hence you must be an 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 3OI 

unsafe judge in such matters. But when you thus speak of 
"counterfeit notes " you imply the existence of genuine notes. 
Without the true ones the counterfeits could have no possible 
existence. And then it seems to have escaped your observa- 
tion that there can be no " forgeries " unless there are some 
"genuine signatures." Now will you be kind enough to jus- 
tify your extraordinary use of terms by either admitting the 
reality of the Spiritual Phenomena, or otherwise by showing that 
we can counterfeit things which have no objective existence ? Here 
follows a conundrum and your answer to the same : 

"Now what is the difference between Hermann or Heller's miracles 
and the miracles of Modern Spiritism ? The difference is, first, that Her- 
mann's 'miracles' are self-confessed tricks which, nevertheless, completely 
impose on the senses and defy popular explanation ; they are beautifully 
executed, are diverting, and are wrought in daylight, leaving to the audi- 
ence the full exercise of their sight. The ' miracles ' of Spiritism are very 
clumsy, cheap tricks, wrought in the darkness, or else wrought under . . . 
conditions of investigation that are a tacit confession of deceit." 

Neither Hermann, Heller, nor the Spiritualists ever pro- 
fessed to perform miracles j nor is it in evidence that they have 
hitherto or do now believe in the possible exercise of any such 
power. You are, therefore, merely improvising a man of straw, 
and surely no one will question your right to knock him down 
just as often as you may be pleased to set him up. The writ- 
er was not acquainted with Hermann, but Heller was famil- 
iarly known by many Spiritualists. In not a few of his more 
extraordinary experiments Heller was supposed to have the 
aid of clairvoyance and the cooperation of invisible beings. 
He was generally reported to be a believer in at least a por- 
tion of the facts of Spiritualism. It is, moreover, on record 



302 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

that some of the most celebrated jugglers in Europe have ad- 
mitted that certain spiritual phenomena are quite beyond the 
utmost power of their art. Now to presume that the facts and 
experiences which are pulverizing the very bones of the old 
Materialism, and have already convinced millions of people in 
America, in all European countries, and everywhere through- 
out the civilized world, are merely juggling tricks, is to madly 
jump at a conclusion a thousand-fold more incredible than the 
spiritual theory and philosophy of the Manifestations. 

"And to these cheap mummeries and onion-tainted eructations of un- 
grammatical frauds Prof. Phelps seriously applies the name of diabolic su- 
pernaturalism. The grammar is supernatural, the spelling diabolic, but 
all else is either the careful imposture of cunning cheats, or the abnormal 
pranks and utterances of persons who sincerely think themselves inspired 
when they are only hysterical. Healthy men and women of sound minds 
in sound bodies never see any spirits, never become inspirational speak- 
ers, singers or preachers : morbidly nervous men and hysterical women 
can always see anything they desire, from a tomcat to a camelopard, and 
can spout sentimental nonsense by the hour," etc. 

Here Spiritualism — this world's highest conception of the 
philosophy of Nature and the religion of Humanity— is treated 
as a farcical show ! The writer can see nothing whatever in 
the truth that has convinced millions but a mere exhibition of 
buffoonery. The first sentence of the foregoing extract is in 
a style which throws the " Sacred Rhetoric " of Andover into 
the shade. " Cheap mummeries and onion-tainted eructations of 
ungrammatical frauds" is such an illustration of rhetorical ele- 
gance and powerful characterization of an offending party as 
seldom comes to our notice in the literature we are accustomed 
to read. In this case you are not only your own witness in 
supporting your charges, but prosecuting attorney and supreme 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 303 

judge. After giving your own testimony and ruling out all 
the witnesses for the defense, you render judgment with the 
authority that admits of no revision or appeal. You decide 
that all inspired persons, and such as see Spirits, are " morbidly 
nervous men and hysterical wo7nen." We do not care to demur, 
but would thank you to answer a few questions for the satis- 
faction of the pious Christian people of New England. 

Was Elisha, the Hebrew prophet, suffering from nervous 
debility when he beheld the spiritual hosts encamped about 
Israel ? Daniel, who was " cast into the lion's den," seemed at 
one time to have been a man of considerable nerve. Did 
Daniel " weaken " at last, and was his nervous system relaxed 
and his mind in a morbid state when he saw and interpreted 
the hand-writing of a Spirit on the wall of the king's palace ? 
Did Ezekiel have a night-cap on his head, or in his stomach, 
when he had the vision of dry bones ? Did Peter have cerebro- 
spinal meningitis on the house-top when the "great sheet " was 
let down containing all manner of four-footed beasts (" tom- 
cat" and " camelopard " not specified) ? According to this 
theory, Saul had an attack of epilepsia, or falling sickness, 
when, according to the Evangelical narrative, he was knocked 
down by a Spirit and was sure he heard a mysterious voice 
speaking to him in Hebrew. John must have suffered from a 
succession of nervous spasms, accompanied by great prostra- 
tion, while the grand visions of the Apocalypse were passing 
before him in the little island of Patmos ! Did Jesus have a 
brain fever, or only some temporary derangement of the optic 
nerve, when he saw Moses and Elias ? Your hypothesis pre- 
sumes that those ancient worthies, and all inspired souls in 



304 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

every age, have been sick people! On the other hand, we are 
left to infer that the only really normal men and women in 
the world are those who are spiritually blind as bats, on whose 
low plane of life they only 

" Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave." 

Now let a Spirit refute — it may be for the one thousandth 
time — the stereotyped declaration that everything which comes 
from the other world, that is inspired, is "spiritual fustian," 
" mere twaddle," " senseless verbiage," or, to use your own 
terms, " sentimental nonsense" From among the distinguished 
authors who have made communications to the present writer, 
since they left the mundane sphere of existence, I will here 
introduce Edgar A. Poe. On occasion of the annual Thanks- 
giving in 1854 — it was a dark, bleak November day — he came 
to me and related his experience while passing through the 
change called death, and his entrance into the other world. 
His thrilling story was told in sixty-two lines, and the improvi- 
sation occupied just fifteen minutes, T. L. Harris being the 
medium. The abrupt termination of Mr. Poe's mortal life, 
the birth of the Spirit surrounded by unearthly terrors, and 
the opening of the spiritual avenues of sensation amidst the 
glories of the immortal world, are thus graphically and beauti- 
fully c described in the first part of the Poem : 

" A lurid mantle wrapped my Spirit-form, 
Cradled in lightnings and in whirlwinds born, 
Torn from the body, terribly downcast, 
Plunged headlong through red furnaces in blast ; 
Those seething torrents maddened me ; I fell — 
But woke in Paradise instead of Hell. 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. 305 

Like song-waves circling in a golden bell, 

Like fragrant odors in a woodbine dell, 

Like glowing pistils in a rose unblown, 

Like all sweet dreams to Saints in slumber shown, 

Like Heaven itself, like joy incarnate given ; 

And as a ship through wintry whirlwinds driven 

Finds land-locked port in Araby the blest, 

So I, through terror, entered into rest." 

A lovely maiden, whose angelic beauty is revealed in the 

transcendant light that emanates " from her full bosom," then 

comes to the poet, who is filled with rapture while she sings : 

" ' I have waited, I have waited, 
As the Evening Star belated, 

When it lingers pale and lonely by the purple sunset door ; 
I have found thee, I have found thee, 
And with heart-spells fast have bound thee : ' 

So from out the glowing halo sang the Angel-Maid Lenore." 

The Poet then rehearses, with remarkable power of expres- 
sion, the unhappy scenes of his mortal life — the poverty, des- 
olation, despair and madness — 

"All Earth's undivided sorrow," 
which so deeply wounded his sensitive heart and veiled his 
troubled spirit in the darkness of a tempestuous night. The 
feeling of absolute desperation which possessed his soul, and 
bunjed in his brain like an unquenchable fire, and the bliss- 
ful repose of the liberated Spirit in the home of the angels, are 
vividly contrasted in the closing stanzas : 

" And I fled Life's outer portal, 

Deeming anguish was immortal, 
Crying, ' Launch thy heavy thunders, tell me never to adore ! 

Hate for hate and curse for curses, 

Through abysmal universes, 
Plunge me down as lost Archangels fell despairingly of yore.' 



306 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

" So the whirlwind bore my Spirit, 

But to lands that Saints inherit, 
And it seems my heart forever like a ruby cup runs o'er. 

I am blest beyond all blessing, 

And an angel's pure caressing 
Flows around my soul forever like a stream around its shore." 

The coming of the Spirit was not anticipated at the time. 
He came suddenly, and the medium was entranced in an in- 
stant. During the delivery of the poem from which the ex- 
tracts are taken, the manner of the speaker was highly dra- 
matic ; at the same time the countenance and his intonations 
were expressive of all the tender and terrible emotions so im- 
pressively indicated in this remarkable improvisation. The 
internal evidence that it was inspired by the author of the 
" Raven " is so strong that no unprejudiced mind, at all fa- 
miliar with the circumstances of its production and the style 
of the reputed author, will be likely to question its claims. 
The late Mr. Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield (Mass.) 
Republican, who formerly manifested an inveterate hostility to 
Spiritualism, published a commendatory notice of this poem, 
in which — in spite of his prejudices — he thus expressed his 
judgment of its merits : " It has all the ' fine frenzy ' of that wild 
son of genius, and some of the stanzas are quite equal, in our 
view, to his best efforts." • 

Percy Bysshe Shelley descends to the mortal sphere, out of 
" The Morning Land " of unfading beauty and harmonic life, 
to sing for us this Fairy's " Song of the Violet : " 

" There came a fairy blue, and sang : 
O, maiden dear, attend, attend ! 
When first on earth the violet sprang, 
Each earthly maid had fairy friend, 



GREAT DARKNESS IN VERMONT. %0J 

" Who whispered m her ear by night — 
Sing, heart, my heart the mellow lay ; 
And so the violet grew more bright 
Within her eyes from day to day. 

" Wake, fairies, wake from field and glen ; 
Wake, fairies, on your azure steep ; 
For ye shall throng to earth again, 
And sing to maidens in their sleep." 

On another occasion a Spirit-maiden came to sing her sweet 
song in honor of the immortal Shelley, from which I extract 
the following lines : 

" Our darling is not dead ; he lieth here. 

Where the blind, groping earth-worm finds him not. 

As water-lilies mourn the fading year, 

Fond hearts deplore him on the earth. No spot, 

Defiles the crystal pureness of his fame. 

The efflorescence of his being blooms 

On Earth, blooms splendidly. Like May he came, 

Sowing rich beauty over dens and tombs 

And rocky peaks and solitudes. He sped 

Like a clear streamlet o'er its jagged bed, 

That by no torture can be hushed asleep, 

But pours in music hastening to the deep. 

Peace, peace, bewail him not with garlands sere, 

Ye Autumn Months, his is no funeral bier, 

No pale dissolving Eidolon is he 

Of that which was, but never more shall be ; 

Shelley, the Spirit, lives eternally. " 

I will ask space for one additional illustration from the 
records of modern inspired thought — only a single stanza. In 
this instance it is Coleridge who lifts his Orphic Lyre under 
the very shadow of the Cherubim, and thus discourses — in 
the " Lyric of the Golden Age " — of the true Church in Man : 



308 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

" The Minster is a marble psalm, 
Where Druid oak and Syrian palm 
Lift the groined roof, and seem to wave 
O'er isle and chancel, crypt and grave. 
The Church of God in Man below 
Methinks should like the Minster grow ; 
All truths His three-fold voice inspires, 
Should build its buttresses and spires ; 
Each holy deed that memory sings, 
Should gleam with cherub face and wings 
O'er the high altar's mystic shrine, 
And Love make all the place divine." 

Now, Mr. Editor, you and your readers are at liberty to 
judge of the merits of the examples here furnished in elucida- 
tion of my subject. How far the individual characteristics of 
the reputed authors are made manifest in the style of each, is 
left to the decision of competent judges everywhere. For a 
suitable consideration I might supply perhaps thirty to fifty 
thousand lines of poetry from Spirits, as far above the stand- 
ard of ordinary newspaper verse as electric lights are superior 
to glow-worms and fire-flies. I am quite serious in saying this, 
though it is not my purpose to advertise for a contract. 

I venture to look for the early publication of this letter. I 
am all the more confident in this expectation since you have 
already entered a formal protest against even " Injustice to the 
Devil." Can you not afford to be equally fair in your treat- 
ment of Spiritualists ? If in this case you decide to be no less 
magnanimous, I am sure you will be forgiven by the great 
People whom you have treated with unmerited indignity. 

Yours respectfully, 

S. B. Brittan. 

Secular Press Bureau, 29 Broad St., 



Newark, N. J., Nov 



)ad St., ) 

. 24, 1881. j 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 

SHADOWS ON THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, BOSTON, MASS. 

One-sided Freedom of Discussion— A practical Commentary on Justice — Will Hindo- 
stan send a Missionary to Rutland ? — Editor Bigelow's ex parte Controversy — 
He Rejects our Reply and writes a Letter— He gives Illustrations in Rhetoric- 
Taking his Cue from Professor Phelps— Senses and their Functions— Thomas L. 
Harris and the English Bards — Distinguished Converts to Spiritualism — Bigelow 
on Nervous Exaltation— Shakespeare and Milton— Spirits in Hamlet and Macbeth 
— " Midsummer Night's Dream "—Bard of Avon on Spirits and Angels — Milton's 
Spiritual Drama — Michael and Gabriel — Obfuscation in the Sanctum — An Editor's 
habitual Craze— Fraud and Delusion the Materialist's Credenda— Editorial Gas- 
conade—Appeal to the passions of the Populace— Midnight views of Journalistic 
Responsibility— Retiring under a Cloud. 

To the Editor of the Herald and Globe : 

THE foregoing review of an editorial article which ap- 
peared in the Rutland Herald and Globe was forwarded 
to that journal for publication. The affectation of such a love 
of justice on the part of the Editor as would even " give the 
devil his due," furnished some justification for the inference 
that he might possibly be manly enough to grant a hearing to 
the people whom he had so unjustly assailed. But the man 
who deliberately misrepresents the views, aims and purposes 
of others, and does not hesitate to defame the character of 
millions of respectable people, rarely has the magnanimity to 
listen to either witnesses or counsel in their defense. The 
ignoble instinct of fear, so common among all such people, 
prompts them to shun a fair trial, and to hide their offenses 

309 



3IO THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

by any shallow device, while they flee from a righteous retri- 
bution. Instead of publishing our just and temperate review, 
Mr. Bigelow returned the manuscript with the following letter : 

Dr. S. B. Brittan : 

i. Your letter reached me this morning. I prefer to accept your cour- 
teous description of me, as a writer, whose unscrupulous and defamatory 
language has fairly placed me outside of any decent field of controversy. 
[This is a perversion. Our words were, without the pale of civil and 
rational controversy on this particular subject. ,] Free discussion has its 
limitations, and under its name and sign I shall not meekly present my 
body as a target for the rotten eggs of your rhetoric. Your communica- 
tion belongs to the Banner of Light, or some other paper equally redolent 
of that intellectual hysteria called Modern Spiritualism. 

2. Of your ability, of your sincerity, of your literary culture, I am 
thoroughly persuaded, as thoroughly as I am of your impertinence in ask- 
ing me to publish a personal libel on myself and my motives under the 
name of free discussion. Under no circumstances would I do this, save 
one, viz., if you could not obtain a much wider and more effective field 
for your opinions in your own spiritistic press. Dr. Brittan can always 
get a hearing, for I know very well who you are, and am familiar with 
your excellent literary quality ; but that fact does not blind me to the fact 
of your delusion any more than the genius of Wendell Phillips for oratory 
and literary art blinds me to his crazy theory of finance. Because you 
are in all lines probably my intellectual superior, is no assurance that you 
may not be the subject of delusion in some directions. 

3. I remember you many years ago, when you lectured in Burlington, 
Vt. My father was deeply interested in the so-called philosophy and phe- 
nomena of Spiritualism, and I went with him to hear you, and if my mem- 
ory is not at fault you were a very welcome guest at his table. You im- 
pressed me then as the only man of real ability and culture that I ever 
heard speak on the subject. My father, who had all his life been a " The 
odore Parker " infidel, as he was termed in those days, was a man of bold, 
fearless, independent spirit, ready to investigate, ready to give any cause 
a fair hearing. I trust that his son has too much respect for his memory 
to judge Spiritism without a fair inquiry into the facts. My father con- 
tinued his investigations for twelve years. His house was always open to 
the spirit lecturers and mediums ; in his frequent visits to Boston and 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 3II 

New York he always attended the seances of the most famous mediums. 
I necessarily was with him much of the time ; I have patiently sat for 
hours with him at circles ; have listened to all kinds of mediums, some fa- 
mous, others obscure ; I was the confidant of all my father's experiences 
and of his conclusions. During the first years of his inquiry I think he 
.was a believer ; but further investigation firmly convinced him that the 
whole thing was a delusion, mixed with a good deal of imposture. That 
is, he utterly rejected all performances that depended on conditions which 
denied the exercise of the test senses of sight and touch. 

4. He saw no proof of spirit-life in the remarkable utterances of Mr. 
Thomas L. Harris, whose epic of " The Starry Heaven " I found among 
his books. He saw what I see, that Mr. Thomas L. Harris is a true poet, 
but he did not see that his melodious utterances were any proof of spirit- 
communication. He did not impugn the sincerity nor the ability of Dr. 
Brittan or Judge Edmonds, who came to different conclusions than he 
reached himself; but he felt that he could no more accept them as perfect 
guides than he could follow Webster submissively in politics, because of 
his towering intellect, which instructed him that it was right to remand 
fugitive slaves to bondage. My father died, after all his candid and cour- 
ageous investigation, in the belief that Modern Spiritualism had added 
nothing to the proofs of a conscious spirit-life, which he had always 
doubted from boyhood. He did not believe in Hebrew inspiration, in the 
divinity of Christ, or in the so-called miracles of the Bible ; he deemed 
them a mixture of honest delusion and clever imposture, and considered 
them neither better nor worse than the so-called inexplicable wonders of 
Modern Spiritism. 

5. My own experience, since his death in 1867, has brought me to the 
same conclusion, that Spiritism, whether within the Bible or out of it, will 
not bear intelligent investigation that does not approach its task crippled 
by natural credulity, or paralyzed by that prepossession which starts with 
belief and advances to investigation, instead of starting with skepticism 
and reaching belief through inquiry. The number of believers in Modern 
Spiritism is no more proof of its truth than the number of believers in the 
Spiritism of the Scriptures is proof of its genuine character. I reject both 
as having no foundation of fact that will bear the examination of reason. 
The Ledger is a very cheap paper, but its subscribers are a multitude. 
The so-called phenomena are only mysterious when wrought under condi- 
tions that are prima facie evidence of fraud ; all else is the cheapest sort 
of jugglery or nervous exaltation. 

6. I do think that all these inspired "visions" and "wonders," 



312 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

whether of Hebrew history or our own, have exactly the same origin ; that 
Harris differs from Ezekiel and the rest of them only as one devotional 
poet may differ in degree from another. Show me a poet or writer of the 
nervous exaltation sort, and I will show you a sick man, sick in mind or 
body. Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Dante, Massey, De Quincey, Poe, all 
men of genius, but a lack of robust physical and mental health showing 
itself in their morbidity. If we look for health in literature, we find it in 
Shakespeare, in Burns, in Milton, Bacon, Emerson, Montaigne, Goethe ; 
defective some of them in personal morals, but free from a certain morbid 
twist that runs through the men of genius who rise to the mood of that 
nervous exaltation which is the sign of an unhealthy physical organi- 
zation. 

7. But I must stop here ; you are easily my superior in rhetoric, in 
learning and literary ability, but I can not see any justification for your 
faith in the alleged facts upon which it rests. With these facts I have 
been familiar all my life ; they seem to me as inconclusive and absurd a 
foundation as that upon which rests the belief in the so-called miracles of 
the Scriptures. The belief in either ought to be confined to the feather- 
headed Irish peasant that fills every bog with fairies, and every bush with 
a bugaboo ; it belongs to the ignorant negro, who believes that every 
swamp is full of phantoms ; it deserves no place on the evidence in the 
belief of men of thought and discrimination. I neither affirm nor deny 
Spiritualism ; that as a mere speculative belief I do not deride or deny, 
for it may be true, but modern Spiritism I do deride and deny on the al- 
leged facts, which do not to my mind constitute decent proof of an extra- 
ordinary conclusion. I think belief in the so-called " miracles " of the 
Bible has done harm, and I think belief in " the modern miracles " does 
little good and much harm. It simply exchanges one stupid superstition 
for another, and the world gains nothing by the exchange. 

8. I do not publish your letter, because it has no proper place in a paper 
of the sort I publish. I do not feel under any obligation to print a long 
screed in reply to my own opinions on every subject ; if I did I should be 
obliged to print nothing else. Every Democrat who found his party faith 
assaulted would be forwarding me two or three columns, and no small 
country paper could afford to publish a long, elaborate reply like yours in 
justice to its subscribers. The publication would not harm me nor help you, 
for the reason that we have both looked at the same set of facts with equally 
honest eyes, and have reached equally honest, but different conclusions ; 
but as & purely business matter no little country paper can publish a reply 
of such length as yours. Such a discussion is useless, and diverting to 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 3 I 3 

nobody, save those who think as little of my conclusions as I do of theirs. 
I comment on matters of current interest in my own way, but I cannot of 
course make my paper a vehicle of mere warring opinions. Spiritists 
must defend their faith in their own journals just as Democrats are obliged 
to do. If I say anything of Dr. Brittan personally that is false I will 
do him justice, but I owe Dr. Britlan's faith a defense no more than I owe 
Mormonism if I denounce it. 

L. BlGELOW. 

Rutland, Vt., Dec. 1, 1881. 

9. P. S. — I used the word supernatural in its well understood popular 
meaning ; quibbling on this point is only chopping straw under the name 
of logic. L. B. 

i. After a gross perversion of the language we employed in 
the introductory paragraph of our review (as will appear from 
the explanation in brackets in the first paragraph of Mr. Bige- 
low's letter) he makes haste to admonish us that " free discus- 
sion has its limitations." We apprehended as much, and now 
think we have discovered the limits up in Vermont. On this 
point our correspondent's views are very clearly illustrated by 
his acts. His idea of the free discussion of Spiritualism is 
that he shall have full liberty to say just what he pleases — to 
misrepresent the whole subject and defame its disciples, never 
excepting the most worthy — and the right to put a gag in the 
mouth of any and every one who may attempt to answer him 
before the same audience. This is " free discussion " with the 
dogmatic vengeance that recognizes no rights of Spiritualists 
which he is bound to respect. After this amazing effluence of 
illogical stuff we are not at all surprised that he characterizes 
Spiritualism as " intellectual hysteria," and compares our rhet- 
oric to "rotten eggs ! " Elsewhere he professes to discover 
our " superior rhetoric, learning and literary ability ; " but he 
14 



314 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

nowhere offers any atonement for the glaring inconsistency of 
his statements. Now we may respectfully suggest to Mr. Big- 
elow that the writer who indulges in the above unseemly com- 
parison and — referring to Spiritualists — talks about " Onion- 
tainted eructations of ungrammatical frauds," is probably the 
only party in the present controversy who, in his boldest rhet- 
orical flights, is likely to leave a bad aroma behind. Profes- 
sor Phelps, we may suppose, knows some things, since he has 

" Worn 
Gowns in the university, tossed logic, 
Sucked philosophy," 

and is somewhat wiser grown, at least in the world's estima- 
tion. Mr. Bigelow took his cue from the Professor — from the 
man who, after showing to his own satisfaction that the mod- 
ern phenomena are all of the devil, made a strongly aromatic 
comparison in the declaration that Spiritualism is a ''''putres- 
cent heap j " in other words, Satan's huge pile of infernal com- 
post. The Editor of the Herald and Globe may have made 
creditable progress in the sacred rhetoric of Andover, but we 
are convinced that this is not his stronghold. If he could be 
persuaded to drop his windy tropes and descend to the simple 
language of common sense, he would be more generally un- 
derstood and appreciated. 

2. " Impertinence " may mean either want of adaptation to 
the time, place, circumstances or occasion ; personal incivility 
or rudeness of deportment before other persons, chiefly in pres- 
ence of one's equals or superiors. In neither of these senses 
can our review be regarded as an " impertinence." It cer- 
tainly aims with sufficient directness to the point, and it does 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 315 

not contain a single sentence that is uncivil, either in the let- 
ter or the spirit. To intimate that there is anything libelous 
in our language shows the need of the schoolmaster in Rut- 
land and of Webster's unabridged in the Editor's sanctum. 

3. That the father of our correspondent honestly investi- 
gated the Spiritual Phenomena we can readily believe ; nor is 
it incredible that he may have arrived at a conclusion adverse 
to its claims. That the son honors the memory and imitates 
the example of his father rather appears from his own decla- 
ration than from his flippant manner of treating a grave ques- 
tion, his too impetuous judgment and sweeping denunciation 
of the whole subject. But if the elder Bigelow " utterly re- 
jected " all the facts except such as may be perceived by " the 
exercise of the test senses of sight and touch," he certainly 
made a grave mistake. By these senses one could never dis- 
tinguish the perfume of roses and violets from the fetid eman- 
ations of skunks, stramonium and asafcetida. Moreover, a large 
class of the spiritual phenomena consists of a great variety of 
sounds which, we know, are not cognizable by sight and touch. 

4. Mr. Bigelow, following the judgment of his father, " sees 
that Mr. Thomas L. Harris is a true poet, but he does not 
see that his melodious utterances are any proof of " Spirit-com- 
munication." The fact he states is his misfortune. It is not 
given to all men to see everything. Some people are color- 
blind ; others can no more discern a moral principle or a meta- 
physical distinction than an ordinary blind man can see a hole 
in a wall ; and we know that the vision of the great multitude 
is sealed for the present to all spiritual realities. 

But our correspondent does not account for the wonderful 



3l6 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

improvisations referred to when he says that Mr. Harris is a 
true poet. No one could have enjoyed better opportunities 
for observation of the personal characteristics of the man and 
the peculiarities of his inspiration than the present writer had 
for a period of several years. Mr. Harris has not only a 
small brain, but his head is especially narrow through the re- 
gion where the phrenologists locate ideality and sublimity, 
the two faculties most marvelously displayed in his poems. 
Upon the supposition that he is himself the sole author of the 
ideal creations that bear his name, his case is forever irrecon- 
cilable with the claims of phrenology, and it is a problem that 
admits of no satisfactory solution on the principles of psycho- 
physiological science. The fact that any one of the leading 
English Bards was able to write in his own peculiar style, at 
the expense of much painstaking effort, was sufficient to es- 
tablish for him a lasting reputation among men. But in Mr. 
Harris Spiritualism has furnished the man who is entranced or 
goes to sleeps a?id without conscious effort reproduces the individ- 
ual mental characteristics, with the personal and poetic idiosyn- 
crasies of more than half a dozen of the greatest modern poets / 
To maintain that Mr. Harris, or any other man, can produce 
such astonishing results — can rise so far above himself and 
without apparent effort — by a process of unconscious cerebra- 
tion, is as preposterous as to assume that he can lift himself 
up to the seventh heaven by gently pulling at his shirt-collar. 

5. You assume that the believers in Spiritualism were and 
are all weak and credulous people, whose minds were first 
" paralyzed by that prepossession which starts with belief and 
advances to investigation." Here you imagine you perceive a 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 317 

state of things which really has no existence in fact. No fe- 
verish dreamer under the influence of a strong narcotic, or the 
delirious spell of nitrous oxide gas, was ever further away from 
sober reason and the facts. Every one who has any reliable 
information on this subject knows that Spiritualism has made 
its way against the scientific materialism of the schools, the 
dogmatic theology of the Church, and almost universal unbe- 
lief. An immense majority of the investigators were deter- 
mined in the beginning to explode its claims, but they did not 
succeed. A multitude of the saints concealed their convic- 
tions ; fashionable people amused themselves with the new il- 
lustrations of the soul's immortality ; pious ministers, like Dr. 
Eliakim Phelps, prayed for deliverance, while the Spirits fas- 
tened conviction on the mind and heart. Among the unwill- 
ing converts have been many sharp-sighted scientists like Dr. 
Robert Hare, Prof. J. J. Mapes and Prof. David A. Wells, of 
this country ; Crookes, Wallace, Varley and Cox, of England, 
and the scientific philosophers of Germany. It was the orig- 
inal purpose of these men, and of many others scarcely less 
distinguished, to expose the deception they expected to dis- 
cover. They kept firmly to their resolution until the demon- 
strations of Spiritual presence, intelligence and power became 
so numerous and convincing that there was no escape from an 
unwelcome conclusion, when bold resistance and unreasoning 
skepticism at last reluctantly gave up the ghost. 

6. You express the opinion that " all the inspired visions 
and wonders ." of ancient and modern times must be referred to 
one common origin ; but you do not tell us how, where, or under 
what specific conditions they originate. You do not attempt 



3l8 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

to show us the relations of subtile forces and natural law to 
our spiritual faculties and susceptibilities. True, the inquiring 
mind calls for a logical explanation ; but you explain nothing. 
We would know the source of this inspiration, the invisible 
agents employed in the process, if any exist, and what are. the 
laws which govern the generation and expression of inspired 
ideas. On all questions demanding profound consideration, 
the recognition of metaphysical principles, or any knowledge 
of spiritual things, your extreme reticence is suggestive. Nor 
are we informed what your conception is like when you refer 
to "a poet or writer of the nervous exaltation sort. ' ' You are only 
explicit on one point, namely, that all such people are "sick in 
mind or body." We often hear it said that the nervous systems 
of sick people are relaxed, enfeebled or unstrung. But this 
can hardly have been the condition of the poets to whom you 
refer. The terms employed rather indicate that in those cases 
the "harp of a thousand strings" was above concert-pitch. 

You give us the mystical number of seven sick geniuses, and 
then you mention the names of seven others who are said to 
have been healthy. In the last-mentioned class I find the 
names of William Shakespeare and John Milton. Perhaps 
these two great poets excelled all others in the elements of 
philosophy and sublimity which characterized their writings 
respectively. But how you may consistently include these 
great spiritualistic geniuses in your list of normally constituted 
minds, I fail to comprehend. Shakespeare, in his skeptical 
mood, makes reference to — 

" The undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveler returns." 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 319 

Yet his own genius rolls the stone from the door of the sep- 
ulcher and brings back the spirits of the departed in Hamlet 
and Macbeth. He empties the graves of the dead in " Mid- 
summer Night's Dream," and makes church-yards populous 
with Spirits. When the ghost of the murdered king appears to 
Hamlet, the inspiration of the great poet thus finds expression 
in the language of invocation : 

" Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! " 
Did the Bard of Avon believe in angels and in the power of 
Spirits to defend their mortal kindred ? If he did, was he 
really in a normal state of mind ? If he did not believe in 
their ability to come, and in their power to shield the defense- 
less ones, can he be said to have been engaged in a healthy 
exercise of his faculties in thus giving the weight of his im- 
mortal testimony to the support of the world's sacred tradi- 
tions and the popular superstitions of his age and country ? 
Did the world's great author — the most philosophical mind in 
the long list of ancient and modern poets — believe that when 
a man has lost his cerebrum he has no power to feel, think 
and act ? And are we to suppose that in his opinion brains 
are forever indispensable to the man ? No ! Higher wisdom 
came from the source of his inspiration. In his more exalted 
moods he knew better, and he makes Macbeth say : 

" The times have been, 
That when the brains were out, the man was dead, . 
And there an end ; but now they rise again ! " 

When Shakespeare talks thus and makes the restless spirits of 
men play important parts in the dramatis persona of his in- 
spired creations, does he really mean anything ? Or are we to 



320 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

take the materialistic view of the subject and presume that all 
this is only so much spiritual buncombe ? 

Milton, too, is furnished with a clean certificate of health at 
your hands. True, the principal dramatic characters in " Par- 
adise Lost," the theater of the spiritual drama, the shifting 
scenes and unearthly imagery, are chiefly derived from worlds 
which no mortal eye ever looked upon. Milton's vision of 
the celestial rebellion represents Michael and Gabriel warring 
against Satan — the poet's impersonation of selfish ambition — 
who was hurled with all his apostate angels from the battle- 
ments of heaven down to fathomless perdition. Of course 
this powerful drama never had any substantial foundation in 
fact, nor so much as a shadow in the realm of probabilities. 
Why, then, is it not as good evidence that the author was 
"sick in body or mind," as Mr. Bigelow finds in the narcotic 
dreams of De Quincey ? 

7. If extreme credulity and blind faith be regarded as a 
mild form of insanity, so there is a lunacy of obstinate skepti- 
cism that paralyzes all the spiritual faculties and so entombs 
the man in the grave of a soulless materialism. Of this last 
phase, you, my dear Sir, furnish a most striking illustration. 
There are thousands of believers in Spiritualism, all over the 
world, who fairly represent the higher degrees of intellectual 
and moral development. Among them are not a few trained 
scientists, many bold and independent thinkers and wise phi- 
losophers ; but the Editor of the Herald and Globe imagines 
that if these men are not all fools naturally, they have become 
such by the excessive credulity " which starts with belief and 
advances to investigation." 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 321 

He is a critic of doubtful capacity who makes no distinction 
between the ripe scholarship of German . Universities and the 
ignorance of the poor negroes who live about the Southern 
lagoons and people every fen with phantoms. The greatest 
thinkers of the time : distinguished statesmen and able jurists, 
eminent poets, sculptors and musical composers, and a con- 
stellation of the brightest stars in ancient and modern litera- 
ture, are all — in your judgment only — to be classed with " the 
feather-headed Irish peasant," who finds a bugaboo in every 
bush and bog. Of course you can have little or no respect for 
exalted genius and profound erudition so long as they escape 
your recognition and are utterly confounded with stolid igno- 
rance and the grossest superstitions. 

And yet, Sir, with a mere jumble of the incongruities of 
superficial thought which most resembles the chaos of Moses — 
being " without form and void " — you come to lecture us on 
the principles of logic, which, according to Sir William Ham- 
ilton's terse definition, "is the science of the laws of thought." 
We like to be respectful always and serious whenever the oc- 
casion admits of gravity ; but really, Mr. Bigelow, your at- 
tempt to determine by the Rutland standard the intellectual 
caliber and moral specific gravity of such men as the Editor 
of the London Journal of Science and the Leipzig Professors, 
is such a grotesque exhibition of presumption that one hardly 
knows what to anticipate next as an illustration of the lunacy 
of chronic skepticism. After this we are prepared for almost 
any Quixotic extravagance, and the public will hardly be sur- 
prised should you take an early opportunity to weigh Jupiter's 
satellites at the corner grocery J 



322 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

8. Here we learn the reason why our letter was declined. 
The editor says, because " it has no proper place in a paper 
of the sort I publish." If the subiectjter se was unsuited to his 
columns, why did he drag it in and make Spiritualism the 
theme of his editorial gasconade ? And if it was proper to 
discuss one side of the question, what impropriety could there 
have been in giving place to the other ? We were disposed to 
impart some moral vitality to his columns by telling his readers 
the honest truth about Spiritualism ; but he utterly defeated 
our good intentions. To justify his course he literally assures 
us that the truth on this subject would be out of its " proper 
place " in his paper, and on this point he is probably right. 
We acquiesce with regrets, and the suggestion that Mr. Bige- 
low might make a small place for the truth in his paper by 
issuing a large supplement. Fiat Lux. 

A screed, in the sense that Mr. Bigelow employs the word, 
is an harangue, or vehement appeal to the passions of the pop- 
ulace ; in other words, it is a noisy tirade, or violent declama- 
tion, especially one replete with censure or invective. In our 
forty years of journalistic work we have never yet published a 
single paragraph that would warrant such a characterization. 
When the editor of the Herald and Globe designates a dispas- 
sionate and philosophical review of his unrighteous assaults 
upon Spiritualism and its friends as a "long screed" he em- 
ploys terms without the least regard to their real significance. 

Mr. Bigelow assures us that if he libeled a single individual 
he would " do him justice ;" but having unjustly assaulted a 
large community composed of some millions of individuals, he 
not only disclaims all moral accountability therefor, but pro- 



LATEST BIGELOW MANIFESTO. 323 

ceeds to justify the deed by a reference to the base custom 
and bad habits of unscrupulous politicians. Stripped of its 
flimsy disguise, this is the hideous immorality that claims im- 
munity for its lax liberty, not for the reason that its acts have 
any possible merit, nor yet that they even admit of justifica- 
tion, but on the poor plea that these manifold offenses have 
been co7timiited on a large scale ! It is on this shaky ground 
that our Vermont correspondent rests the pleading of not 
guilty of any wrong. 

How shall we characterize the very questionable morality 
that rests its defense on the magnitude of the wrongs it has 
committed ? Is this plea for justification valid because not 
one but many have been injured ? The world has full long 
enough been cursed by this false logic which, through all the 
historic periods, has been made to cover the most gigantic in- 
iquities. The man who commits the larceny of taking a cheap 
jackknife is called a thief ; but one may impoverish a peace- 
able and defenseless people, by the cunning of a devilish di- 
plomacy, and still be honored as a distinguished citizen ; or 
he may pillage a State, and call his ignoble act by the proud 
name of conquest. If, in a moment of ungovernable passion 
one aims a fatal blow at his fellow, he is described as a " mis- 
erable assassin ;" but the man of lawless ambition may ride 
through rivers of blood, over the prostrate forms of thousands 
of his fellow-men, and be hailed as a conqueror ! It is time 
that this infidel standard of morality was utterly demolished. 
Too long already have we been dazzled and deceived by the 
splendid glamour of worldly circumstance and the magnitude 
of human actions. Let honest men apply the scourge to every 



324 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

specious form of falsehood, and hereafter let all men and their 
deeds be judged in righteousness. 

9. P. S. — In the pursuit of knowledge on philosophical sub- 
jects it will never do to thus heedlessly follow the unreasoning 
crowd. It is only by earnest thought and a precise use of lan- 
guage that we can hope to so convey our ideas as to illuminate 
the subject and inform the common mind. Bulls bellow and 
raise a dust by pawing the earth, but bulls are not endowed 
with reason. It is said that domesticated goats will live upon 
filthy rags and old shoes ; but goats are never afflicted by del- 
icate appetites and imperfect digestion. The ass is satisfied 
when he feeds on thistles. He never was a creature of nice 
discrimination, but will kick at his own shadow hard enough 
to kill a wise philosopher. It is evident that to escape your 
animadversion one must be like him — with proverbial obsti- 
nacy stick fast in his old tracks, bray aloud, and never trouble 
himself about definitions. 

With the compliments of the season to the Editor of the 
Herald and Globe, from the Editor-at-Large, 

S. B. Brittan. 

Secular Press Bureau, 29 Broad St., ) 
Newark, N. J., Dec. 24, 1881. ) 



SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 

HOW SPIRITUALISM IS TREATED IN MINNEAPOLIS. 

WRITTEN FOR THE MINNEAPOLIS (MINN.) EVENING JOURNAL.* 

A Man of Business Testifies— He Sees the Facts under Test Conditions— Deception 
said to be Impossible — Jumping at a Conclusion — Nature Preserves her Method 
— Men who Voice their Ignorance — Illustrations of Natural Law — Intellectual 
Juvenility — Jesus more Natural because Spiritual — The Investigator Theorizes — 
Hypothesis of a Distinct Order of Beings— Believing against Evidence— Igno- 
rance and Dogmatism — Spirits as Educators and Physicians — Their Deeds of 
Charity— Saving the Life of Hon. N. P. Tallmadge— Bursting of Commodore 
Stockton's Gun — Reformed by a Spirit — Lives Saved by Spirit-warnings — Eman- 
cipation Proclamation — Lincoln Inspired to Break the Chains of Slavery— Immor- 
tality Demonstrated— Powers of the Spirits— Laws of Spiritual Attraction— Bait- 
ing with Deception and Catching Lies— The Subject in its True Light — Waiting 
for Heavenly Interpreters of Spiritual Mysteries. 

Secular Pbess Bureau, ) 

New York, Jan. 26, 1882. J 

Editor of the Minneapolis Evening Journal : 

MY attention was recently called to an article which 
appeared in your paper, giving in brief the experience 
of one of your citizens in his investigation of Spiritual Phe- 



* The Journal, to whose editor this letter is addressed, recently pub- 
lished a portion of the same, embracing especially our citation of facts in 
illustration of the benevolent offices of the Spirits. Reference being had 
to these facts, he observed — we think with questionable grace — that "Mr. 
Brittaris statements may be said to be important, if true." He, however, 
appears to be too well satisfied of their truth already to invite either a 
further authentication of our statements or additional examples of the 
same class. The reason is readily apprehended. The facts illustrative of 

325 



326 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

nomena. The subject to which your editorial refers is not less 
interesting because some time has elapsed since its publica- 
tion. You mention the fact that " one of the shrewdest and 
most successful business men in Minneapolis " had just visited 
New York (for business purposes, we infer), and that he im- 
proved the occasion " to thoroughly investigate the alleged 
phenomena of Spiritualism." In judging of what constitutes 
a thorough investigation, all men are necessarily limited by 
their knowledge, respectively, of the particular subject of in- 
quiry. The leisure hours a Western merchant, or other busi- 
ness man, might find while pursuing his temporal interests for 
a few days in the commercial Metropolis, would scarcely suf- 
fice for anything like a thorough investigation of a subject so 
profound in its principles, so widely diversified in its phenom- 
enal illustrations, and so far-reaching and revolutionary in its 
prospective results. 

The facts witnessed were of such a nature that the gentle- 
man from your city was perfectly satisfied " they could not 
have been performed by any human or other known physical 
agency." He heard the writing " between slates " and read 
the messages where " the slates a moment before had presented 
a clear surface." This shrewd observer " saw Spirit-forms 
clearly ;" he also " felt the touch of spirit-hands distinctly." 
These phenomena he is said to have observed " under condi- 
tions where there could not possibly be any collusion or trick." 



the beneficent objects and uses of this intercourse with our Spiritual Visit- 
ors, utterly demolish the theory of his ' ' clear-headed " fellow-citizen, 
and with it the bold, dogmatic and unfounded assumption " that Spiritual 
communications never lead to any good." 



SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 327 

It appears that he did not entertain a single doubt of the trans- 
mundane origin of the illustrations of intelligence and power 
which occurred under his critical inspection. So far his pre- 
vious skepticism appears to have yielded to evidence about as 
readily as wax melts in the flame, and we are ready to question 
the judgment of the man whose faith is so easily established. 
Indeed, it would seem to be a peculiarity of this man's faith 
that he can believe just as well without evidence and even 
against evidence. That I may avoid even the appearance of 
injustice in my treatment of your fellow-citizen's case, allow 
me to here reproduce so much of the article under review as 
follows in this connection : 

" The conclusion he arrived at was, that there are supernatural agencies 
controlled by the medium or controlling the medium ; that there are veri- 
table ' spirits ' which visit the earth and perform these tricks ; but that 
these spirits are not the souls of departed human beings. They belong, 
he thinks, to an inferior order of beings. They are mischievous, false, 
malicious, trifling, insincere, and often devilish. Communication with 
them never leads to any good. The whole influence is bad and demoral- 
izing. They are, he thinks very likely, the familiar spirits and devils 
alluded to so often in the Scriptures. While these spirits evidently be- 
long to an inferior creation, they yet possess some powers unknown to us. 
They can, for instance, project one solid through another without break- 
ing either. They appear to be able to resolve substances into their origi- 
nal elements, and then put the elements together again in their original 
form. In this way flower and other materialization may be accounted for. 
But in other respects their powers are very limited. They might see a 
thief rob a house, but would be unable to inform the victim of the robbery, 
or to communicate any information on any subject. If they could there 
would be no such thing as privacy, and the habits of the human race would 
be revolutionized. It is possible, he thinks, that the souls of the departed 
may sometimes communicate with mortals through these familiar spirits ; 
but if they do the spirits are so given to lying that no reliance can be 
placed upon what they say. 

" The Evening Journal gives some space to these speculations, because 



328 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

they are the views of a gentleman who is regarded by his acquaintances 
as remarkably clear-headed. His judgment is sound on all business mat- 
ters ; he never 4 slops over' or goes off on a tangent, or accepts theories 
without careful consideration. Nor has he ever been supposed to be in the 
least bit superstitious. His explanation of spiritual phenomena opens up 
wide fields of thought and curious speculation, but it does not add materi- 
ally to the attractiveness of Spiritualism as a form of religious faith." 

1. Your friend concludes that "there are supernatural agen- 
cies either controlled by the medium or controlling the medium ; " 
that these agencies " are veritable spirits which visit the earth 
and perform these tricks." 

Here the old supernaturalism crops out, which has its origin 
and end in the popular ignorance of the extent and capacities 
of Nature. It stands in the way of rational thought and all 
progressive ideas. Let us make a slight effort to blot it out, 
here and now. Nature is a vastly greater institution than has 
been conceived of even in the mind of the profoundest philoso- 
pher of the time. Let it be remembered that Nature is never 
limited by the narrow scope of our information. It is the in- 
evitable tendency of the ignorant mind to assign to super- 
natural causes all effects which it cannot explain by reference 
to some physical cause within the narrow limits of its own 
comprehension. A man living under the equator, without any 
knowledge of other parts of the world, would naturally con- 
clude that, without a miracle, water could never become solid ; 
and yet it is perfectly natural for water to freeze at the proper 
temperature. The people in polar regions may never sweat 
when the mercury is freezing, but the application of a warm 
vapor-bath and plenty of capsicum tea would convince an Ice- 
lander that it is perfectly natural for men to perspire freely 



SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 329 

under suitable conditions. Tell an ignorant person that the 
water contained in one gallon measure may be made to fill the 
measure of eighteen hundred gallons, and he would never be- 
lieve ; but we have only to convert the gallon of water into 
steam, and the fact is demonstrated. 

Thousands of illustrations might be drawn from Nature and 
science to show that when we talk about Supematuralism we 
only babble or voice our ignorance. There is nothing super- 
natural which is likely to come under our observation in this 
world. All the phenomena of matter and mind are natural, 
and whatever we call supernatural may serve to define the 
limit of our information. The light of Aldebaran is as natural 
as that of a glow-worm or a fire-fly. We are prone to think 
that small things, and the circumstances of daily experience, 
are all strictly natural, whilst great events — phenomena of rare 
occurrence and characters which only once shed their superior 
light on the darkness of ages — may be supernatural. This is 
the very common misapprehension of our intellectual juvenility. 
The truth is, the rose that blossoms every month under the 
cottage window is no more natural than the century plant, that 
only sends up its great stalk and displays its magnificent corolla 
to the sun once in one hundred years. 

A similar course of illustration is no less applicable to the 
highest types of mankind. Jesus of Nazareth was even more 
natural than ordinary men, for the reason that his beautiful 
life was more in harmony with the laws of Nature. The in- 
telligence of the highest archangel is neither unnatural nor 
supernatural, because in our low estate we have no rule by 
which we may measure his sublime capacity. In proportion 



330 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

as our knowledge of Nature is enlarged the realm that em- 
braces what we regard as supernatural is diminished in our 
apprehension, until at length, from some moral eminence in 
the Universe, the soul, with unclouded vision, looks over the 
vast spheres of organic life and all human relations, and dis- 
covers that all things are natural. 

Your friend was perfectly satisfied that what he is pleased 
to characterize as " these tricks " were performed by " verita- 
ble spirits which visit the earth " from some other sphere of 
existence ; and yet the terms you employ show that his inves- 
tigation did not so much as enable him to determine whether 
the so-called " supernatural agents controlled the medium," 
or, on the contrary, were subject to his own arbitrary exercise 
of power. This is a preliminary question of no little conse- 
quence, and it is not to be presumed that an investigation was 
at all thorough which left it wholly unsettled in the judgment 
of the inquirer. Moreover, until this fundamental question is 
effectually disposed of, how can your friend logically conclude 
that the facts are to be referred to a superterrestrial or spirit- 
ual agency ? If it shall hereafter appear that this intelligent 
controlling power — exhibited in the production of the essen- 
tial facts — is in the medium, where shall we look for the evi- 
dence of any foreign spiritual agency whatever ? If the gov- 
erning power, as illustrated in the development of the mys- 
terious phenomena, really belongs to and is exercised by the 
medium, we may perhaps dismiss the Spirits altogether, since, 
in this case, their agency would seem to be quite unnecessary 
as a factor in the solution of this problem. 

2. " But these spirits are not the souls of departed human be- 



SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 33 I 

ings. They belong, he thinks, to a7i i?iferior order of beings. 
They are mischievous, false, malicious, trifling, insincere and of- 
ten devilish." 

Should we admit the truth of what he here affirms respect- 
ing the character of his own spiritual visitors, the assumption 
that they are not human would find no possible confirmation 
in such an admission. It would still be no less manifest that 
this " remarkably clear-headed " citizen shows his capacity to 
believe not only without evidence, but against evidence. What 
does he know of a separate order of spiritual beings, inferior 
to men ? Nothing, whatever ; and the rest of mankind know 
no more. Outside of heathen myths and fables, the fanciful 
conceptions of pious priests and inspired poets, the nursery 
tales of ignorant old women, and the realm of popular super- 
stitions of the Dark Ages, there is not the smallest vestige of 
evidence to support such an assumption. 

In the investigation of phenomena it is regarded as unphilo- 
sophical to assume the existence of hypothetical causes or un- 
known agents, when those already demonstrated to exist will 
enable us to account for all of the facts. Now, the gentleman 
whose opinions you represent violates this admitted principle 
of a scientific philosophy. In the case under discussion, the 
facts all plainly show that the intelligence displayed is most essen- 
tially human. The facts that some spirits are inclined to trifle 
with grave subjects, that others evince a mischievous dispo- 
sition whilst, here and there, some malicious spirit stands re- 
vealed, neither prove that these intelligences belong to a dis- 
crete order of beings, nor that they are inferior to the human 
species. The facts furnish no evidence to support either of 



332 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

the foregoing propositions. There are multitudes of mischiev- 
ous people in this world, and they are constantly going over to 
the other country. They carry with them all of their inborn 
and acquired characteristics, and of course many continue to 
practice mischief so long as they are thus disposed. The en- 
trance to the other world no more changes either a mischiev- 
ous or malicious man than the act of entering the Queen's palace 
converts an ignorant clown into a polished courtier. 

Now what if some of the Spirits are devilish in the worst 
sense implied by your fellow-citizen ? The Church maintains 
that much the larger part of the human race are sent to hell 
forever, where they are beyond the possible inclination to re- 
form, and are thus forced to an everlasting life of willful dis- 
obedience, insane opposition to natural law, and hatred of all 
that is essentially beautiful, supremely good, and absolutely 
true. We by no means sanction such views when we refer to 
them ; but if there is so much as the faintest shadow of truth 
in the fundamental doctrines of the Church, why object to the 
human spiritual origin of the facts on the ground that some 
of them reveal a wicked disposition toward man and a rebell- 
ious spirit against God ! 

3. " Communication with them [the Spirits] never leads to any 
good. The whole influence is bad and demoralizing." 

As a revelation of egotistical presumption and entire igno- 
rance of the real facts of Spiritualism, nothing could exceed 
this brief statement. After a few hours' investigation a busi- 
ness man decides that no good has ever resulted from inter- 
course with Spirits. The arbitrary dictum of this man involves 
an assumption of all knowledge on this subject. Let me re- 



r 



SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 333 

spectfully inform him that hundreds of millions of communi- 
cations have come from Spirits within the last thirty years, 
covering many tons of paper. In his dogmatic confidence he 
assumes to know the contents and character of all these mes- 
sages from the Spirit-world and also the effects they have pro- 
duced on mankind. In view of this assumption it appears that a 
man may exercise " sound judgment " in business, and yet be 
wholly incompetent to deal with a subject of this nature. It 
is precisely here that your friend betrays his great weakness. 
His accredited shrewdness does not transcend the mundane 
sphere of his business relations. The soundness of his judg- 
ment would have been more conspicuously revealed had he 
suppressed the spasmodic conclusions of his obvious ignorance 
and the intense self-consciousness which finds the sole object 
of respect and worship in the Ego. 

Now what has any one to gain by a wild extravagance of 
statement in the attempt to conceal or disguise the truth ? I 
take no risk in saying that every man and woman in the coun- 
try who is not morally blind, may — if thus disposed — find the 
means at hand to disprove this man's assertion. The writer 
could cite a thousand facts, giving names and dates if neces- 
sary, any one of which would suffice to completely upset the 
shallow assumption that no good ever comes from communi- 
cation with Spirits. You have not the space for an extended 
statement, and I will, therefore, confine myself to the following 
summary of a few of the good deeds known to have been per- 
formed by Spirits, or at their instigation : 

Many ignorant people have been very well educated under 
spiritual influence and direction, and without the aid of mor- 



334 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

tal teachers or masters. Spirits have restored many persons 
to health who were dangerously ill, by sending prescriptions 
to them, often unsolicited, and otherwise, by direct spiritual 
influence exerted on the mediumistic patient. Persons have 
been sent by Spirits to the starving and freezing inmates of 
lonely garrets and damp cellars with food, fuel and clothing, 
even late at night, by which means the sufferers have been 
preserved and made comfortable. Many valuable lives have 
been saved by Spirit-warnings of impending danger. The late 
Hon. N. P. Tallmadge, ex-United States Senator from New 
York, and ex-Governor of Wisconsin, was thus saved from 
instant death when Commodore Stockton's great gun burst, 
killing two cabinet ministers and other gentlemen. I recall 
the case of a young man who treated his aged parents with 
great cruelty. A Spirit came visibly before him, while he was 
at work in the field, and told him, in so many words, to mend 
his ways, or he might look for a sudden second coming of the 
Spirit as a messenger of judgment. This spiritual visitation 
was the means of a complete reformation. The maddening 
bowl has been dashed from more than one man's lips by a 
Spirit who suddenly controlled the nerves and muscles of vol- 
untary motion in the impressible subject. Several persons 
have been admonished not to take passage on certain vessels 
and particular trains which were wrecked while on their way 
with great loss of life. Such cases occurred in connection 
with the ocean steamer Pacific and the Norwalk Railroad dis- 
aster. Spirits have opened the way to pleasant homes for 
many destitute children. At their instigation the venerated 
Lincoln was inspired to perform the grandest act of his life 



SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 335 

in raising no less than three millions of down-trodden human 
beings up to the dignity of individual freedom and citizen- 
ship. The Spirits have nerved many a poor mortal to bear 
his heavy cross up the rugged steep to a higher life. They 
have demonstrated the truth of immortality to millions whose 
uncertain faith and hope demanded this confirmation. Thus 
have they poured the light of the everlasting Morning through 
the dark " valley and shadow of death," rendering the "king 
of terrors " powerless, and the final surrender of the expiring 
mortal the grandest earthly victory ! 

In the light of such illustrations, what becomes of the reck- 
less assertion that the whole influence of the Spirits is corrupt 
and demoralizing ? When men will thus theorize without the 
slightest regard to essential principles, or the least reference 
to the facts in the case ; and error, in its blind blundering, 
spills the unclean contents of its old bottle over our heads, we 
are not thankful for the foul baptism, though, as a mere mat- 
ter of courtesy, we may listen to the pleasant assurance, that 
these people "never ''slop over] go off in a tangent, or accept theo- 
ries without careful consideration ! " 

4. " These spirits . . . can, for instance, project one solid through 
another without breaking either. They appear to be able to re- 
solve substances into their original elements and then put the ele- 
ments together again in the original form. In this way flower 
and other materializations may be accounted for. But in other 
respects their powers are very limited. They might see a thief 
rob a house, but would be unable to inform the victim of the rob- 
bery, or to communicate any ififormation on any subject." 

Here the most amazing power over matter is attributed to 



33^ THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

Spirits. They are credited with the ability to pass one solid 
body through another, without any apparent disturbance of 
the molecular contents of either. They are presumed to pos- 
sess such a subtile knowledge of the laws of chemistry, that 
they can decompose compound substances at will ; disorgan- 
ize and reorganize bodies by the simple act of volition ; and 
yet it is positively affirmed that they do not know enough to 
expose a thief if they had the inclination ; in short, that they 
are incapable of imparting " any information on any subject" 
It seems to me that no man outside of a lunatic asylum ever 
entertained a more irrational hypothesis. Of course it is only 
logical to infer, that the capacity of an intelligent being to im- 
part information must bear some relative proportion to the 
measure of his attainments. And yet the gentleman whose 
views you represent attributes the noblest faculties of mind, 
and seemingly miraculous powers of will, to beings who are 
said to be too stupid to serve as witnesses in a police court ! 
Here is the amazing credulity that believes against evidence, 
and the unreasoning faith that rests on anything and every- 
thing but recognized principles and demonstrated facts. 

It is not the fault of Spiritualism that its enemies often at- 
tract unclean spirits when they go to investigate. As a rule 
we draw to our presence natures of similar tastes and inclina- 
tions, and we may not hope to subvert the moral laws which 
regulate this intercourse. It is well known that such people 
often go to the medium under a cloak of fraudulent represen- 
tation. In their inquiries they often attempt to deceive, and it 
comes to pass that " a fool " is sometimes answered " accord- 
ing to his folly." In angling among Spirits, if one baits with 



SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATION. 337 

deception he will be sure to catch a lie j and who will presume to 
say that he is not justly served ? 

Mr. Editor, there is a significant truth and peculiar force in 
the present application of the concluding words of your edi- 
torial under review. The peculiar " field of thought and cu- 
rious speculation," opened by the class of investigators whom 
you represent, surely " does not add materially to the attrac- 
tions of Spiritualism as a form of religious faith." Here you 
are quite right, and it gives me pleasure to be able to indorse 
your final conclusion. Spiritualism, as painted under the hand 
of your friend, certainly has no attractions worth mentioning. 
To see this great subject in a true light ; to comprehend the 
Spiritual Philosophy in its relations to the possible achieve- 
ments of Science and the future glory of Religion ; to appre- 
ciate the essential divinity of its principles and the amazing 
grandeur of its far-reaching aims and issues, we must seek for 
some clearer and more heavenly-minded interpreter. 
I have the honor to vindicate, Sir, 

" The Truth against the World." 

15 S. B. Brittan. 



338 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 



SOARING AND SINGING. 

BY S. B. BRITTAN. 

THE SKY-LARK. 

" Over the rxh ripe corn 
The lark her tremulous voice has raised, 

And out in the early dawn, 
The earth at her melody stands amazed." 

Christmas Card. 
List, while the song, so rich and rare, 
Descends along the sky-light stair 

Of the upper air ; 
It comes to me in early June, 
When life and all things are in tune — 

Like a poet's rune. 

Oh, sing and soar — sing at the dawn ! 
If I've no fields of rip'ning corn, 

Still sing in the morn. 
Above my neighbor's waving maize, 
I hear thee in the summer days, 

And heavenward gaze. 

Sweet bird of the aspiring wing, 
As ever in the morning sing — 

Make the welkin ring, 
With music from thy silver horn, 
Above the wealth of golden corn, 

While the fields are shorn. 

Thy morning song my hopes inspire , 
Now quickened, as with vital fire, 

I may go higher ! 
After the bird that soars and sings, 
Above all low and meaner things — 

On her tireless wings. 

Oh, happy bird ! thy cheerful lays 
Awake my heart to joy and praise ! 

Through the frost and haze — 
And storm of this autumnal night — 
We look for Wisdom's ways of right, 

And heavenly Light. 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 

HOW THEY BECOME VISIBLE AND TANGIBLE. 

BY S. B. BRITTAN. 

Introductory Observations— Order of Natural Development Illustrated— The Noblest 
Work Unfinished— The Spirit Visitors of All Ages— Absolute Reality of the 
Phenomena— Citation of Facts— Testimony of History and Experience— Startling 
Illustrations — Ben Jonson Entertains his Guests — Seance of the "Miracle 
Circle"— Zalphi, the Greek Girl— A Being of Unearthly Beauty— A Retired 
Merchant Announces his own Death— Classification of the Phenomena— Opening 
the Interior Avenues of Sensation— Psychological Pictures— Spiritual Transfigur- 
ations — The Question of Materialization — Philosophical Exposition— Critical Re- 
view of the Facts — Extremes of Skepticism and Credulity — How Spirits Operate on 
our Senses— Illustrations from Cicero and Virgil— Weighing a Spirit in Vermont- 
How the Indian Maid may Turn the Scale — A Conundrum for the Philosophers — 
One Law governs all Corporeal Bodies — Apparitions of the Living Explained — 
Superstition retires to Congenial Night — Daylight Comes with Spiritual Science 
— Affiliation of Congenial Souls. 

Mother of Science !, Let me feel thy power 
Within me clear, not only to discern 
Things in their causes, but to trace the ways 
Of higher agents. 

— Milton. 

IN the production of all physical forms the Supreme Intelli- 
gence works through material elements and natural laws. 
This appears to be the universal order of Nature. By the 
slow processes of aggregation and crystallization the rocks are 
formed, and Nature deposits her vast mineral wealth. By a 
power of molecular attraction the atoms congregate, and one 
by one silently gravitate to their places. Nature converts the 
rayless carbon into precious gems that scintillate from delicate 

339 



340 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

fingers or flash their iridescent light over the forms of beauty. 
In her hands even charcoal assumes a pure, crystalline form, 
and is thus made to illuminate true and false bosoms and to 
sparkle like stars in every royal tiara. In all this we have a 
grand chapter in the cosmological history of prehistoric periods. 
By the laws of accretion and organic formation, universal 
vegetation germinates, and all things in this great kingdom are 
formed. Thus plants grow and the primitive forests are made 
to cover the rugged hills. It is always by a slow process that 

"Tall oaks from little acorns grow." 

By degrees, as the years come and go, they grasp the solid 
earth with their roots, and stretch out their brawny arms tow- 
ard the spirits of the storm, while the winds sweep the chords 
and wake the music of the sylvan lyre. Trees of any con- 
siderable magnitude require from twenty to three hundred years 
for their complete development. In speaking of the great ce- 
dars of California, we may use the figure which Napoleon 
applied to the pyramids — Centuries look down from their tops ! 
In the order of Nature there is one general method whereby 
she repeoples the animal kingdom and the human world. Nature 
invariably works through the laws of procreation, organic de- 
velopment and the subtile chemistry of digestion and assimila- 
tion. In this way, by gradual processes, from which there is 
no departure, she constructs and repairs the tissues and the 
bones of all animal and human bodies. We know of no other 
method by which they may be produced. While it is possible 
for human intelligence, on earth and in the higher spheres— 
by the concentrated application of subtile forces — to greatly 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 34 1 

accelerate the processes of the physical universe, we may not 
generate the simplest organic form by any means or methods 
outside of the established order of the natural world. 

It will be perceived that the creative energy or formative 
power works by general laws, and never by special enactments, 
spasmodic efforts, or miraculous means. After everything is 
ready it takes full fifty years to fairly block out a respectable 
specimen of the human race ; and then, as a rule, the animal 
so far predominates that it is difficult to find the man. For 
thousands of years — how many I cannot say — God has been 
employed on man ; and thus far we have his " last and noblest 
work " only in the rough. Let no one say that my words are 
irreverent until he has fairly weighed the language of the pul- 
pit. The doctors of divinity assure us that they are doing 
much to assist the Lord in his work of perfecting human na- 
ture ; but that man, after all, and at this late day, is such a 
miserable failure that the best of us deserve to be eternally 
damned ! Indeed, we are obliged to admit that man is very 
far from being completed. He is still full of imperfections, 
and it will require centuries to finish him ; but in the end the 
divine faculties and pure affections, with all spiritual gifts and 
graces, may be so combined and illustrated in his nature and 
life that the living God shall set his seal upon him, 

" To give the world assurance of a Man." 

In the vast realms of unorganized matter and organic life, 
we have never witnessed a single departure from the estab- 
lished laws and material processes of the physical universe, 
except so far as the application of those laws may have been 



342 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

especially directed, and those processes modified by some in* 
tervention of human intelligence. One such departure, clearly 
demonstrated, would forever unsettle our confidence in Nature. 
We could no longer depend on the certain execution of her 
laws. Being in doubt in respect to what might happen in our 
experience, we should be disturbed by the perpetual appre- 
hension of impending calamities. Such a departure from the 
natural economy of the world would answer to the vulgar con- 
ception of a miracle, and that is something we seldom read of 
except in theological disquisitions, while we wait to behold a 
single actual illustration. 

With these general observations on the laws and processes 
of the physical world, as revealed in the whole external crea-. 
tion, I pass to a consideration of those phenomenal illustrations 
of spiritual presence and power now commonly designated and 
known as the materialization of Spirits, or the demonstrative 
proofs that departed human beings have power to temporarily 
clothe themselves with real material bodies, chemically com- 
pounded and completely organized from the ponderable ele- 
ments of this world. Apparitions of the living and the dead 
have been frequent in all ages and countries ; but the skepti- 
cal world has ever regarded them as either psychological hal- 
lucinations or optical illusions. Shakespeare makes one of 
his characters say, 

" I think it is the weakness of mine eyes 
That shapes this monstrous apparition." 

In earlier times these preternatural visitors were wont to 
appear in great emergencies. They were dark or luminous, 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 343 

according to their several degrees of moral elevation, the par- 
ticular objects of their mission, and the character of those to 
whom they appeared. They came as solemn heralds of mourn- 
ful events, when death or some fearful ordeal was impending ; 
— after long fasting and devout exercises ; in seasons of great 
darkness, of deep sorrow and humiliation of spirit. They re- 
vealed their presence when conscience, " like another self," 
mysteriously invaded the silent chambers of the guilty soul ; 
and they were visible in hours of great spiritual exaltation and 
heroic achievement. In the long centuries, old and dim, these 
shadowy figures frequented the solitary places ; they stood by 
the altars of the old prophets ; they walked with the Druidical 
priesthood through the lofty aisles of the solemn woods ; their 
spectral forms were seen on the desolate moors ; they appeared 
in graveyards and near the scenes of fearful tragedies ; they 
visited the ruins of old castles and monasteries, and were vis- 
ible in the moonlight. 

In these days our Spiritual Visitors assume a more natural 
appearance, and are disposed to cultivate a closer acquaint- 
ance. They not only walk in darkness and haunt the silent 
dwelling-places of men at midnight, but they come at all hours 
and into many places. They come to the student in his med- 
itation ; to the vacant chair by the lonely hearthstone ; to 
the couch of expiring mortality, and to the sorrowing heart 
that supplicates their inspiring presence and their loving minis- 
try. With strange or familiar faces they meet us in the charm- 
ed circle of our home-life, or may peer at us from the windows 
of the cabinet. They give us, through many voices, the hom- 
iletics of another world ; and they puzzle the professors of art 



344 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

magic by keeping their machinery and confederates all out of 
sight, while they improvise new fabrics of something like wool 
which they pull over our eyes from bare boards and solid walls. 
They tax the gratitude of the unbeliever by bringing him fresh 
flowers, ripe fruits and singing birds. One of the later ex- 
pounders of the occult sciences was present when a material- 
ized spirit was weighed and not found wanting in respect to her 
avoirdupois. Then she danced a hornpipe in a style peculiarly 
human and altogether earthly. This was a fact in materializa- 
tion that the Persian priests of Zoroaster never witnessed. Let 
us see how history is repeating itself. The magicians of an- 
cient Egypt were obliged to yield the palm to Moses at last, 
the Jewish historian being the witness ; and so our most con- 
spicuous and lively champions of their arts are obliged to ac- 
knowledge that there is a considerable margin of genuine spir- 
itual facts which the soiled and ragged mantle of the magicians 
of all ages will never cover. 

The numerous facts now recognized as examples of the ma- 
terialization of spirits have been quite frequent in different ages 
and countries. The seers and prophets of all the past were 
familiar with the apparitions of departed human beings. The 
sacred literature of the ancient nations is illuminated by their 
presence, while profane history offers many examples. The 
cases have been so frequent in the experience of all the races 
of men that it is quite impossible to account for them by the 
convenient hypotheses of optical illusions and mental halluci- 
nation. The forms which are presented to the vision and the 
touch seem at least to possess, in a greater or less degree, all 
the physical attributes, qualities and functions of form, size, 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 345 

apparent weight, color, tangibility and locomotion, with the 
occasional superaddition of oral speech. In spite of popular 
skepticism, the sensuous habits of men, and all the cunning 
devices of the modern schools of scientific materialism, the 
mere forces and laws of matter offer no solution of the mys- 
terious problem. The reality and frequency of such phenom- 
ena are clearly enough established if we may respect human 
testimony and credit authentic history. The facts are now 
more numerous than ever before, and the rational mind has 
no alternative but to accept them as demonstrative proofs of 
the actual presence of Spirits. This is our only choice, in 
respect to the real facts, whatever may be the particular the- 
ory or philosophy adopted in their explanation. 

Having admitted the reality of the phenomena and also the 
agency of Spirits in their production (which we have never 
doubted), we are now to institute a philosophical inquiry into 
the essential nature of the facts and the particular modes of 
manifestation. Do Spirits so clothe themselves with the ele- 
ments of matter as to be perceived through the ordinary ave- 
nues of sensation ? Do they really extemporize bodies pos- 
sessing all the chemical constituents and organic parts belong- 
ing to the corporeal forms which they occupied during their 
rudimental life on the earth ? Or, by what other means and 
methods do they show themselves to mortals ? 

And here I can not omit the observation that many persons 
who set out in their investigation of Spiritualism by disputing 
all former revelations, especially the marvels recorded in Jew- 
ish and Christian histories, frequently run wild, in their ex- 
travagant assumptions, to the opposite extreme of unreasoning 
15* 



346 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

credulity. It is quite common for such people to express 
their contempt for the elder prophets and seers, and to ridicule 
the just claims of inspired Apostles ; at the same time they are 
ready to swear to the infallibility of their own chosen medium. 
These novices talk of freedom and liberality while they take 
their place 

" With bigots, who but one way see, 
Through blinkers of authority." 

The most improbable views are often accepted with the utmost 
favor. Theories of the phenomena under discussion obtain 
currency which are believed to be at once inconsistent with 
the laws of Nature, the decisions of enlightened reason, and 
the discoveries of science. 

At present I have neither time nor space to meddle with 
those elementary Spirits which I can only regard as the mon- 
strous creations of rudimental natures, begotten in the night 
of superstition and born of the human mind in its far distant 
wanderings from Nature and Reason. I can not here attempt 
an argument in refutation of the Pythagorean dogma of metem- 
psychosis, as revived in the philosophy of Allan Kardec and 
in the minds of his French, Spanish and American disciples. 
For the present I must confine myself to a discussion of the 
essential facts illustrating the visible presence of Spirits, the 
vaguely defined theory of materialization, and an imperfect 
exposition of what I conceive to be a rational philosophy of 
the subject. 

It is especially worthy of observation that, through all past 
ages, the facts of this particular class have never appeared to 
depend, in any considerable degree, on any particular combina- 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 347 

tion of material elements and surrounding objects ; not much 
on a prearrangement of physical instruments, mental states and 
moral qualities ; nor especially on any nice adjustment of con- 
ditions depending on the cooperation of mortals. At the same 
time it may be conceded that certain conditions are doubtless 
required, and also that a proper knowledge and observance of 
these cannot fail to render the results more certain and satis- 
factory. I will here briefly' refer to such illustrative examples 
as may serve to exhibit the real character and general aspects 
of the phenomena. The statement and analysis of a few repre- 
sentative examples will be all that the case imperatively de- 
mands. In the hope of adapting my summary treatment of 
the subject to different classes of minds, these facts shall be 
selected from both sacred and profane history and from the 
personal experiences of living witnesses. 

When Saul went to the Seeress of Endor he disguised him- 
self, but was unable to preserve his incognito after Samuel 
appeared. From that moment the woman recognized her vis- 
itor, and said, " Why hast thou deceived me ? for thou art 
Saul." It does not appear that the king really saw the spirit 
at all ; for, addressing the medium, he inquired, " What sawest 
thou ?"..." What form is he of ? " " And she said : 
• An old man cometh up ; and he is covered with a mantle.' 
And Saul perceived or inferred [evidently from the descrip- 
tion] that it was Samuel " (i Sam. xxviii. chapter). 

In the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Kings will be 
found the record of a remarkable illustration of the subject. 
The Jews were at war with the Syrians, who came by night 
and surrounded the place that contained the king and the 



34§ THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

prophet Elisha. In the morning the prophet's servant was 
greatly alarmed when he saw that the Syrian hosts encom- 
passed the city. But the prophet was not dismayed. He 
recognized the presence of a much more numerous host all 
invisible to his servant. At length — in answer to the pro- 
phet's prayer — the inward vision of his servant appears to have 
been opened, for suddenly he, too, beheld the vast multitude 
of celestial warriors filling the air ; they were gathered for the 
defense of their mortal kindred. Then there followed what 
really appears to have been the grandest conceivable display 
of psychological power. The whole Syrian army — if we may 
credit the account— was smitten with temporary blindness by 
the power of the Spirit-world ! Placing himself at the head 
of the Syrian legions, Elisha then bade them follow him, and 
he led them into the walled city, Samaria, where they were all 
captured without the loss of a single life. 

In that remarkable dramatic poem entitled the Book of Job, 
we have this sublime description of the appearance of a Spirit : 
" In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep 
falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made 
all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face ; 
the hair of my flesh stood up. It [the spirit] stood still, but 
I could not discern the form thereof : an image was before 
mine eyes ; there was silence, and I heard a voice saying, 
Shall mortal man be more just than God ? Shall a man be 
more pure than his Maker ? " (Job, chap. iv. 13-17.) 

In the prophecy of Daniel we have an account of a great 
feast, given by Belshazzar, the king, to "a thousand of his 
lords " and a numerous company of his wives and concubines. 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 349 

Having desecrated the vessels stolen from the temple at Jeru- 
salem, the whole assembly was engaged in drunken revelry, 
praising " the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of 
wood and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a 
man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick, upon the 
plaster of the wall of the king's palace ; and the king saw the 
part of the hand that wrote." (Daniel, chap. v. 1-5. | 

Moses and Elias made their appearance on the solemn oc- 
casion of the transfiguration of a great spiritual prophet and 
Friend of the People. According to the Evangelist. Jesus, 
after his crucifixion, first appeared to Mary Magdalene, out of 
whom he had cast seven disorderly spirits. He next appeared, 
it is said " in another form " to two friends who were out for a 
walk in the country ; subsequently to the eleven apostles while 
they were at supper, whom he severely reprimanded for their 
skepticism as to his continued existence and ability to make 
his presence known : and, finally — according to Paul — to more 
than five hundred persons at once. 

John was in exile by the imperial edict of the last of the 
Caesars, on Patmos. one of the Grecian Islands. It was near 
the close of the first century, when he was visited by the spirit 
of one of the elder prophets, who inspired him, and presented 
— while the medium was in a state of spiritual entrancement — 
a series of psychological pictures on the grandest conceivable 
scale, terminating with the vision of the New Jerusalem com- 
ing down out of heaven. The Revelator was so completely 
awed by the presence of the heavenly messenger ; so pro- 
foundly impressed by his teachings ; so deeply entranced by 
the splendor of the celestial city and the spiritual significance 



350 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

of its imagery, that he " fell down to worship before the feet 
of the angel." But this ancient prophet declined to receive 
divine honors, saying, " See thou do it not ; for I am thy fel- 
low-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them 
which keep the sayings of this book : Worship God." 

Before the battle of Philippi it is said that a spirit appeared 
to Marcus Junius Brutus and warned him of his impending 
fate. The great Prophet-warrior who made the conquest of 
Arabia indulged in frequent communion with invisible spirits, 
and especially with one whom he believed to be the Angel 
Gabriel. Cromwell was visited while a youth by a mysterious 
female, who informed him that the child, at one time so near 
being destroyed by an ape, was born to rule the State. The 
beautiful Maid of Orleans, while walking in the garden, was 
addressed by a Spirit in an audible voice. From that time she 
had frequent interviews with her celestial visitor, whom she 
believed to be St. Michael. Others came to her who were 
said to be St. Catherine and St. Margaret. They told her 
where she would find a consecrated sword in the crypt of an 
old cavalier in the church of St. Catherine ; and with that 
sword — inspired by the shades of departed heroes — she led 
the armies of France to victory and Charles VII. to his throne. 

The great seer of Stockholm was fifty-five years old when 
he first saw a Spirit. Swedenborg was dining at an inn in 
London. Having at the time an unusual appetite he was eat- 
ing very rapidly, when he distinctly saw a little man in the 
corner of the room, surrounded by a great light. The illu- 
minated personage addressed him in a terrible voice, saying : 
" Do not eat so fast ! " From that time Spirits were his famil- 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 35 1 

iar companions. One day as he was walking along Cheapside 
with a friend, the Baron suddenly bowed very low, assigning 
as a reason his recognition of the presence of Moses. At an- 
other time a widow lady requested him to seek an interview 
with her deceased husband, for the purpose of obtaining some 
information of great consequence. Swedenborg complied, saw 
the man, obtained the required information, and at once in- 
formed her where she would find a missing paper, the absence 
of which had prevented the settlement of her husband's estate. 

Frederica Hauffe, the Seeress of Prevorst — a pure child of 
Nature, born and reared among the rugged summits of Wir- 
temberg — saw Spirits on various occasions. Her first experi- 
ence was on her wedding day. For some time she had suffered 
from deep mental depression. The funeral of her minister 
occurred on the very day of her marriage. She was standing 
by the open grave, when his spirit appeared to her in a form 
of light, and from that moment every feeling of despondency 
was dissipated. She continued to converse freely with Spirits, 
and often learned from them the history of their lives on earth. 
The departure of Frederica from the checkered scenes of her 
mortal existence was signalized by their manifest presence. A 
bright figure appeared in the room ; it was visible to the sister 
who watched by the bedside of the patient. Suddenly the 
Seeress uttered a loud cry, expressive of the most ecstatic joy, 
and two spirits vanished together. 

I here close the citation of historical examples, and will now 
offer some illustrative facts on my own authority, leaving my 
readers to recall others from the current literature and the 
records of their private experience. 



35 2 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

One night, in 1852, I attended a spiritual seance at a private 
house in Bridgeport, Conn. A large number of friends had 
assembled ; the manifestations were highly diversified and 
every way extraordinary. In the course of the evening the 
company was informed by the Spirits that the present writer 
was to be ordained anew, and to a more spiritual ministry. I 
had once been ordained by the imposition of the hands of a 
priesthood which never had any faith in the vital importance 
of the ceremony. Of course no gift of the Holy Ghost nor 
any other spirit came to me from those ministerial palms. 
They conferred no new powers. The Spirits seeing that this 
was but a hollow sham proposed a new ordination which was 
not all an unmeaning ceremony. Immediately after their pur- 
pose was announced, I felt a large hand placed upon the cor- 
onal and frontal portions of the head. It remained there for 
some minutes with an apparent pressure of several pounds, 
and was accompanied by a thrilling sensation which left no 
part of the body uninfluenced. The presence of the palm and 
every separate finger was distinctly impressed upon the sen- 
sorium. This was so real, that I instinctively attempted to 
seize the arm, which, it really seemed to me, must be there in 
connection with that hand. As often as I made the attempt. 
I closed my hand on vacancy. I only clutched the air. That 
muscular hand remained, and I essayed to grasp it in my own. 
There was nothing there that could be perceived through the 
sensory nerves of my right arm. 

In 1854, while present — by invitation from the spirit of Ben 
Jonson — at a stance in New York, of what was known as the 
" Miracle Circle," the whole company had the positive evi- 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 353 

dence of one sense, that a huge animal — apparently a dog of 
the largest size — was present and endowed with life and loco- 
motion. He came in sensible contact with the lower limbs of 
the persons present. At length the animal, starting from be- 
neath the table, forced his way out between myself and the 
person at my left, separating our limbs so as to leave a space 
of a foot or more between us. No form, living or dead, could 
have been more tangible ; yet, at the same time, the interven- 
ing space was vacant to the sense of vision. 

Among the immortals whose presence has been most dis- 
tinctly revealed to me are two female spirits. One calls her- 
self the Enchantress. This spirit came to me many years 
ago, for the purpose — as she then declared — of increasing the 
magnetic and psychological powers which I have so long exer- 
cised in my experimental investigations, and for the relief of 
suffering humanity. The other, whose name on earth — so the 
spirit informs me — was Zalphi, says she was a Greek girl, 
and lived in ancient Athens. She affirms that the object of 
her mission to the writer is to develop the perception and love 
of the Beautiful ; to aid in all aesthetic studies, and to quicken 
aspiration toward the absolute Perfection. The finest types 
of earthly beauty, and the love-life of the poet's dreams, af- 
ford only faint suggestions of such transcendent loveliness ! 
Beautiful in form and feature, and more radiant in expression 
than Rafael's Virgin, is this fair-haired maiden of the land of 
Solon and Sappho. All powers of description utterly fail ; art 
can never transfer the radiant image to canvas ; even Genius 
would be dumb before the illuminated presence of the pure 
being, from whose inner life is diffused a soft, rosy light — 



354 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

flowing through fleecy robes of spotless purity — more glorious 
to behold than 

' ' The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. " 

The late Stephen Dudley, a wealthy retired merchant of 
Buffalo, N. Y., died suddenly in that city more than twenty 
years since. It was his last request that the writer should be 
sent for to speak at his funeral. His sons telegraphed to my 
address in New Jersey ; but I was absent in Maine at that 
time, and did not receive the slightest intimation of his depart- 
ure until I reached Hartford, Conn., on my way home. While 
there, at the house of a friend, in the full light of midday, he 
suddenly appeared, standing before me between two windows 
opening toward the east. A strong but mellow light, illumi- 
nating the coronal portion of the head, and the upper part 
of the face, gave him a transfigured appearance, as if the ris- 
ing sun was pouring a flood of golden rays through the win- 
dow upon the brow of one of the noblest looking men the 
sun had ever shone upon. Perfect in form, feature and ex- 
pression, he continued to be visible not much less than ten 
minutes. He made no communication, but from that very 
moment I felt assured that his mortal life was finished. There 
were five other persons present, one of whom saw my spiri- 
tual visitor distinctly ; and without any intimation from me, 
or previous knowledge of the man, described his personality 
in every detail, including attitude and position, all with the 
strictest fidelity to nature and the facts. The next day he 
came to me again, and said : " My dear Brittan, I am with 
you still, but in the spirit" Up to this hour I had not re- 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 355 

ceived the slightest intimation of the departure of my friend 
from this world through any external or mundane channel of 
communication. 

These examples, selected from various sources, ancient and 
modern, are sufficient for my present purpose, since they rep- 
resent the several phases of the phenomena now so generally 
named " the materialization of Spirit forms. " The physical and 
spiritual conditions under which the facts occurred seem to 
have been quite as diversified as the wide range of human 
characters, pursuits and circumstances. In no one instance 
does there appear to have been any previous arrangement of 
persons or other objects ; no regard was had to the state of 
the atmosphere, the electrical and magnetic forces and rela- 
tions of human bodies, or the moral qualities of the persons 
present. It is often objected that the screen of the cabinet 
affords an opportunity for the practice of deception. But 
the illustrative examples here furnished do not admit of this 
objection. No cabinets with curtains or screens were re- 
quired ; no paraphernalia of dinner-bells, tambourines, tin 
trumpets and old fiddles to divert attention ; no lights sub- 
dued to the exact measure which renders all figures specter- 
like ; no " dim, religious light " that may veil the features 
to indistinctness and obscure the ever-varying expressions of 
the human face ; no motion of the magician's wand ; no spells 
of enchantment ; nor magical arts and monotonous incanta- 
tions were employed in the process of producing visible Spirit- 
forms, either to harmonize the circle or to mystify the specta- 
tors ; and yet the Spirits were able to " put in an appearance " 
and to command recosmition. 



35^ THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

Let no one infer that I am disposed to question the gen- 
uineness of many of the phenomena which occur in connection 
with the cabinet. Spirits certainly have power to show them- 
selves there as elsewhere ; but in resting the claims of Spirit- 
ualism on any class of facts, I deem it best to select exam- 
ples which offer to the skeptical mind the least ground of 
objection. In respect to the cabinet manifestations, it seems 
proper that each particular example should be examined and 
judged on its own intrinsic merits ; and if, in the end, there 
remains a question concerning the reality of such facts, it is 
only just to give the medium the benefit of the doubt. 

Let us now subject the facts to such an examination as may 
enable us to take some rational view of their real nature. In 
seeking the solution of a most difficult problem in spiritual 
science, anything like dogmatism would be essentially incom- 
patible with the nature of the inquiry. The wisest, not less 
than the weakest observer, should approach a subject of this 
quality with all becoming modesty, remembering that while 

" Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much, 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 

A few critical observations may suffice to give our minds the 
right direction. In contributing my suggestions toward a phi- 
losophical exposition of the facts, I only presume to speak for 
myself and so many of my readers as may find their own ideas 
voiced in what I have yet to communicate. 

As a further preliminary to the proposed analytical and 
philosophical exegesis of the facts under review, a brief state- 
ment of several methods whereby Spirits may and do reveal 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 357 

their forms to our senses, will be of consequence in a more 
particular classification of the phenomena. One of the Spirits 
of " The Golden Age " defines philosophy to be " facts seen in 
their right relations." This is the way we would look at the 
facts in this case. How, then, do Spirits reveal their forms to 
us ; and how do we perceive them ? I apprehend by at 
least four several methods, which I will endeavor to briefly 
explain. 

1. The conscious Spirit in the body has its external and 
internal channels of communication. The senses open out- 
wardly through all the physical organs to the whole realm of 
external nature ; and inwardly to the immeasurable sphere of 
all spiritual realities. As a rule, during the life on earth, the 
interior avenues of perception are closed, and men are blind 
on this spiritual side of their natures. But when — by the 
normal process of our spiritual growth or by other means — 
the dark curtains are removed from those windows of the soul 
which open toward the heavens, our interior being is illumi- 
nated. Then we see Spirits as they really exist in their own 
sphere ; we see them as they see one another, and as natu- 
rally as we behold the objects of the material creation. The 
cases which answer to this description are ne er numerous. 
Society, whether savage or civilized, is too sensuous to dis- 
cern spiritual things. The common life and thought of the 
people are too external to admit of the frequent development 
of such examples. When, however, these interior avenues of 
perception are thus opened in a human being in this world, Spirits 
require no clothing of material elements to make their presence 
visible. When the forms of Spirits are distinctly revealed to 



35$ THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

us in this way, they appear to be in all respects as real as the 
most tangible bodies in this world ; and still there is no 
material substance in such a visible form that would arrest 
the motion of the most delicate chronometer. Spirits whose 
natures are refined, readily pass through closed doors ; and 
whenever they offer no voluntary resistance, very ponderable 
bodies may pass through them as through shadows, illumi- 
nated clouds, or the vapor from a steam-pipe. It will be 
perceived that when the senses are opened on the spiritual 
side of human nature, the appearance of Spirits in visible 
forms does not, to say the least, necessarily depend on any 
materializing process. If such examples are scarcely more 
numerous than summer flowers in wintry weather, they are 
not so rare as Christian charity. 

2. It is to be observed that the mind — whether in or out of 
its earthly tabernacle — has power to present an endless suc- 
cession of psycho-electrotypes, or psycho-physiological pictures, 
which have every appearance of outstanding realities. This 
is done by acting on the subtile agent that pervades the sen- 
sory nerves of the subject in such a way as to reflect an image 
upon the sensorium ; the process resembling that by which 
light throws up an image or picture of the object from which 
the rays are reflected on the sensitive plate in the camera. 
Doubtless all ordinary sensations result from a disturbance or 
excitation of the electrical aura of the nerves of general and 
special sensation, which is the vital motive power of animal 
and human bodies. It is a great mistake to suppose that 
these sensorial impressions can only be produced by material 
means, or the presence of the objective forms of the physical 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 359 

world. This is ascribing to the elements of matter a preemi- 
nence over the faculties of the mind which I am not willing to 
concede. On the contrary, it has been experimentally demon- 
strated that the various i?npressions — occasioned by the ordinary 
objects and agents of Nature — on and through the organs of sen- 
sorial perception, can be produced with similar precision and with 
equal force by the action of a positive mind on a sensitive subject. 
A strong imagination and vigorous will may thus multiply the 
mental images of everything in Nature of which we may be 
able to form a definite conception. Every form that passes 
before the vision ; every sound that breaks the silence ; the 
aromatic flavors treasured up in the autumn fruits ; and every 
precious perfume that is borne on the " wings of the wind," 
may all be made to come to us in the absence of the natural 
objects which contain these essential qualities — and all through 
the agency of the human mind, acting agreeably to psycho- 
physiological laws on the subtile forces of the nervous system. 
All these effects have been produced in this way thousands of 
times, and they are daily repeated by minds in the body and 
in the spirit. Many cases of the alleged " materialization of 
Spirits " are obviously phenomena of this class. Under this 
psycho-sensorial operation what really appears to be a solid 
body may be merely a sensation, this impression of tangibility 
being made through the nerves on the sensorium. 

3. This classification of the facts calls for specific mention 
of the examples of transfiguratiofi. In these cases the Spirit 
takes such possession of the medium, as to change all the facial 
lines and the expression of every feature so completely that 
the medium seems to have disappeared and the spirit alone is 



360 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

recognized.* In such examples the powers of the spirit are 
sometimes so great that with the transfiguration the subject 
is partially transformed. Daniel D. Home and several other 
mediums have — it is confidently affirmed — been made, at least 
apparently, much larger or smaller, and, by actual measure- 
ment, several inches shorter or taller, by this effort of the 
Spirit to represent its own earthly proportions. The facts of 
this class have often been the means of exposing honest me- 
diums to unjust suspicions, from which they should be con- 
scientiously defended. When the Spirit withdraws and the 
phenomena of transfiguration disappear, leaving the form, fea- 
tures and expression peculiar to the medium, the observer who 
is mainly watching for some deception is liable to deceive himself 
and wrong the innocent object of his suspicion. How much the 
indwelling spirit may change the form is suggested by these 
lines of the poet : 

" For of the soul the body form doth take, 
For soul is form, and doth the body make," 

4. There is still another method by which a Spirit may be- 
come visible, regardless alike of all psychological powers and 
susceptibilities, and of the opening of the interior avenues of 
sensation. He may attract to himself and condense about the 
spiritual body certain sublimated elements from the medium, from 
other human bodies and from the earth's atmosphere, so as to 
form a visible material covering, thus revealing the outlines of 



* The reader will find this class of spiritual phenomena freely and beau- 
tifully illustrated in the charming story from the German of Heinrich 
Zschokke, entitled "The Transfigurations." 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 361 

the spiritual presence to the natural senses of the observer. Pre- 
cisely how much matter may be required in the production 
of such forms is a question we will not undertake to settle. 
It may be more or less, according to the measure of the 
Spirit's power, the proper materials at his command, and the 
results intended to be produced. But even the small sub- 
stance of a summer cloud would be quite sufficient to render 
the Spirit visible to all observers. While such forms may be 
more substantial than the momentary spell of the psycholo- 
gist, their superficial aspects do not enable us to determine 
either their chemical composition or their specific gravity. We 
know that at the pleasure of the Spirit such a form may be 
made to resist the contact of ponderable bodies and the ac- 
tion of physical forces ; otherwise it may admit of being so 
penetrated that an arrow may pass through it as freely as it 
would make its way through the morning mist that hides the 
mountains. 

Now would it be proper to say of an example belonging 
to this class that the Spirit is materialized '? If the term is 
not applicable in this case it would seem to be out of place 
in any other. It must be obvious, I think, that when the 
Spirit becomes visible by the opening of the senses on the 
interior plane of perception ; or the phenomena are produced 
by the Spirit acting on the sensory nerves of mortals, the case 
is never, in any philosophical sense, one of materialization. 
Does the term properly represent the facts which belong to 
the fourth division of this classification ? the cases in which 
the Spirit is enrobed with material vestments ? Let us see. 
According to Webster, to materialize is " to reduce to a state 
16 



362 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

of matter ; " " to regard as matter ; " " to consider or explain 
by the laws or principles of matter ; " "to cause to assume a 
character appropriate to material things." Does the Spirit, 
per se, undergo any such change as is indicated by this com- 
prehensive definition ? No. Is the Spirit reduced to a ma- 
terial state ? No. Is it to be regarded as matter ? No. Are 
its voluntary powers subordinated to the laws of matter ? No. 
Is it in a condition that its nature and functions must be ex- 
plained on the principles of physics ? No. Is the character 
of the Spirit changed in any important particular, or are its 
attributes essentially modified ? I apprehend not. If, on the 
contrary, the change is in matter — if the Spirits develop the 
facts by their own subtile and powerful agency in directing 
the faculties of mind and the forces of the physical world, 
why should we infer that the Spirit is materialized ? This as- 
sumption is a significant indication of the tendency of the 
popular mind. It does not distinctly recognize Spirit as the 
active and controlling agent in this business. It is a virtual 
affirmation that the potencies of the Universe belong in a 
most essential sense to matter ; and that the Spirit is brought 
down from its own high estate to the lower level of material 
things. If the active forces employed in the production of 
the phenomena under discussion really belong to the Spirit- 
World, it would better accord with the intrinsic nature of the 
facts to say that matter is spiritualized. 

But the facts carry along with them internal evidence that 
may aid us to settle the question. That they do not all belong 
to the same division of the foregoing classification must be 
obvious to the critical observer. Take the first example in 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 363 

our statement of illustrative facts. The woman of Endorwas 
a seeress. Either her spiritual vision was open, or a psycho- 
logical image was presented. She distinctly saw and described 
the prophet. But Samuel was not visible to Saul. There 
was no image before the eyes of the king ; hence his inquiries, 
" What sawest thou ? " and " What form is he of ? " Had the 
Spirit extemporized a body from the elements it would have 
been equally manifest to Saul. But the king saw nothing, for 
the obvious reason that in this case there was no materialized 
body present. It was probably but a psycho-photograph of the 
prophet's likeness, made on the sensorium of the medium. It 
is worthy of observation that a residence in the Spirit-world 
had not diminished the respectful condescension of Samuel. 
He came promptly at the solicitation of a wicked king, and, as 
it would seem, to confirm the pretensions of an old woman 
whom the Church declares was in league with the devil. 

The amazing revelation of the vast cloud of witnesses whose 
presence overshadowed the Hebrews in their contest with the 
Syrians, might, in these days, be regarded as a stupendous 
case of the " materialization of Spirits," at least by the earthly 
witnesses of their presence. And yet where is the evidence 
that a single Spirit of that innumerable host took on a material 
body to secure recognition, or for any other purpose. The 
analysis of the facts, however searching, will fail to discover any 
proof that the forms of those celestial warriors were fashioned 
from the grosser elements of this mundane sphere. At first 
only the prophet saw the Spirits. His sensitive soul appears 
to have been qualified to recognize the most sublimated forms 
and delicate influences. Through the open avenues of his 



364 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

spiritual being all was revealed. To him the spiritual hosts 
which filled the aerial regions, and were present to champion 
his cause, were quite as real as the besieging army of the king 
of Syria. At length, in answer to the earnest prayer of the 
prophet, and in obedience to the cooperative influence of the 
Spirits, the prophet's servant had his inward vision opened, 
and then he, too, saw the same as his master. But it does 
not appear that the Syrians observed anything unusual. On 
the contrary, the evidence from the record is that they saw 
nothing j and so, in their blindness, were readily captured. 
Now if we suppose that the transmundane warriors extem- 
porized material bodies for the occasion ; each containing as 
much matter as Colonel Olcott says the materialized form of 
the Indian maiden, Honto, represented at Chittenden, when he 
weighed her on the platform scale ; and estimating the su- 
perterrestrial army at say fifteen thousand, the materializing 
process would have required — in ponderable matter — over five 
hundred and sixty-nine tons avoirdupois ! These figures dam- 
age if they do not demolish the materializing hypothesis, in 
its application to the facts of this particular class. In this 
grand exhibition of the powers of the other world — in which 
multitudes of Spirits are said to have been visible— we look in 
vain for any evidence of materialization, in any sense that 
corresponds to the common conception of our time. 

The graphic description of the appearance of a Spirit — cited 
from the book of Job — though perhaps not the record of an 
actual occurrence (the book of Job is a fine dramatic poem), 
represents the experience of one partially entranced by the 
influence of a Spirit while in a natural sleep, and the conse- 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 365 

quent imperfect development of his powers as a clear seeing 
medium. The nerves of general and special sensation are 
strongly exercised ; but the object presented to the vision is 
so obscure that the form of the Spirit is not clearly discerned. 
At the same time the Spirit's action on the auricular nerves is 
shown to be distinct and satisfactory, as appears from the im- 
pressive communication, which seems, at least, to find audible 
expression.* 

When a Spirit wrote with a visible hand on the wall of Bel- 
shazzar's palace a prophecy of the division of his empire, it is 
said that the king saw the hand, and he also appears to have 
witnessed the execution of the writing. It does not appear that 
any other person in that large company saw the hand, though it 
may be fairly inferred that many of the wise men at his court 
had an opportunity to study the Spirit's chirograph. This is 
often referred to as a case of materialization. Had the phe- 
nomenon been of this class the hand would have been equally 
visible to every one of the thousand lords assembled at the 
royal banquet. 



* The ancients seem to have comprehended the fact, that what appears 
to be an audible voice may really be only a sensation produced by a noise- 
less action of some invisible intelligence on the auditory nerves. When 
Croesus, king of Lydia, determined to test the powers of the oracle of 
Apollo, he sent messengers to Delphi with explicit instructions concern- 
ing the questions to be submitted. The oracular responses through the 
Priestess — revealing with singular precision what the king was doing on a 
certain day — were uttered in hexameter verse, beginning in the following 
significant language : 

" I know the number of the sands, and the measure of the sea ; I know 
what the dumb would say ; I hear him who speaks not" Cicero De Divi- 
natione, Lib. I., xviii. 



366 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

Jesus and his disciples who saw Moses and Elias were sus- 
ceptible of spiritual influence, and they were evidently highly 
mediumistic. It was, therefore, possible for them to discern 
Spirits without the aid of any such reincorporate process. So 
Jesus, after his crucifixion, might have readily reappeared to 
the familiar friends who had been so long and constantly 
under his influence. John the Revelator alone saw that elder 
prophet who inspired his visions, and whose visible presence 
the pious enthusiast was already to worship. Mohammed, 
Marcus Junius Brutus, Oliver Cromwell, Joan of Arc, and 
many others alone recognized their spiritual visitors. No one 
but the Seer himself saw the Spirit at the inn who reproved 
Swedenborg for rapid eating and overloading his stomach ; 
and the friend who walked with the Baron at Cheapside dis- 
covered no image of Moses. When the devout Seeress of 
Prevorst beheld the illuminated Spirit of her minister, stand- 
ing by the open grave, the other bystanders only saw his 
mortal remains. The huge animal form at the " Miracle Cir- 
cle " was visible to no one, while — to the last degree — it was 
tangible to all. The Greek girl, though luminous as a star, 
never unveiled her immortal charms to the crowd. Stephen 
Dudley made himself visible to the writer and to one other 
observer ; the four remaining individuals in the room at the 
time did not perceive the presence of this spiritual visitor. 
Perhaps the rule is that only one or two in a circle, or at most 
a limited number, have any such perception. The mass may 
neither see anything above the material sphere, nor otherwise 
perceive what is beyond the reach of ordinary sensation. In 
the phenomena I have thus briefly reviewed, and in all sim- 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 367 

ilar examples, the internal evidence must determine the proper 
classification. 

If it shall hereafter appear that the Spirits are not wholly or 
mainly dependent on gross matter as the means of demon- 
strating the fact of their existence, still, their presence in our 
midst, and their power over the elements of matter and the 
faculties of mind, will be none the less real. The facts are 
not less important if we acjopt a philosophy which takes them 
out of the category of impossible miracles. I neither dispute 
these facts nor question their value when I unde?'take to explain 
them with a due regard to the laws of both ?nind and ??iatter, and 
in the light of a rational philosophy of our spiritual existence. 
Many people presume because they see a form, or feel one, 
that for the time being impresses their senses as both visible 
and tangible, that there must be a complete human frame 
there, with all the natural organs and chemical constituents — 
flesh, blood, muscles, nerves, brains, bones, thoracic and abdom- 
inal viscera, tooth and nail, with all the animal secretions ! 
" Oh Caesar, these things are beyond all use ! " 

If it takes God twenty-five years to make such a human 
body, who will believe that the spirit of a North ' American 
Indian can do it in the twinkling of an eye ? Those who 
are credulous enough to really accept a theory that presumes 
human bodies to be so organized in an instant, ought not to 
stagger at Joshua's alleged successful interference with the 
movements of the heavenly bodies. Such people may accept 
the tricks of the juggler for what they seem ; and they ought 
to be prepared to listen with solemn faith and servile rever- 
ence to the apocryphal stories of all the pious enthusiasts who 



368 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ever lived. They have more confidence in the cunning and 
capacity of a mere magician than in the power and wisdom of 
Almighty God ! These people deem it a waste of time to 
reason. They grapple with imaginary monsters, and swallow 
them whole. They feed on miracles with an omnivorous ap- 
petite until they lose all relish for probabilities, and at last 
come to believe chiefly in the impossible. 

The Spirits seldom or never irmpress all the senses at the 
same time. Sometimes only the sense of feeling is appealed 
to, as when the writer was ordained by the imposition of in- 
visible Spirit-hands. We often feel the presence of unseen 
human hands in our hands, on the head, face and different 
parts of the body, while nothing of the kind is visible. At 
other times the optical and auditory nerves, and the whole 
mechanism of the visual and auricular organs, are acted upon. 
Then Spirits become visible, and there are either voices in 
the air, or corresponding impressions on the sensorium. The 
immortals stand before us like other objective realities. They 
seem not only to have distinct outlines, personality and ex- 
pression, but also to be ponderable, and to occupy space. It 
perhaps never occurs to us that the image is i?i the mind. In- 
deed, in all the phenomena of ordinary vision the images are 
always subjective ; in other words, they are on the brain and 
in the mind. The only question to be settled in any case is, 
how are they produced — whether by the actual presence of 
physical forms, or by the action of the controlling intelligence 
on the subtile agent and organic instruments of sensation ? 

If when a Spirit appears there is really a complete corporeal 
body formed, as there seems to be, it would be equally visible 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. : 5 _~ 

to all observers. When there is a rock, a I05 a horse 61 a 
man in the highway, every traveler who has eyes may behold 
the object in the road — in the same form and with the con- 
current circumstances of time and place. Moreover, when 
we see a material object before as, its presence may be still 
further demonstrated by the sense of touch in even- indivi- 
dual. But in respect to the ocular perception of Spirits., this 
is neither always nor generally the fact, as we all kno^v. In 
the ceremony of the n ew ordination the hand that pressed so 
heavily on the head was invisible. Xor were all the nerves of 
feeling subjected to the Spirit's action. The sensories of the 
right arm were not influenced in the lei?:. When I attempted 
to seize the wrist, the hand closed on vacancy. When I at- 
tempted to grasp the invisible hand itself, I clutched my own 
hair. And still the heavy pressure remained on the cranium. 
I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, except the steady 
pressure of that muscular hand covering the coronal and the 
frontal portions of the brain. This seems to be demonstra- 
:_ e evidence that the operation on the part of that Spirit 
was confined in this case :: the cerebrum, and without mak- 
ing the slighter: impression elsewhere :~ any ::" the si::g:le or 
double sensor}- nerves. By the simple act ::' volition God's 
spiritual ministers come and go at pleasure. They touch me 
when and where they will; they play upon these nerves as 
on "a harp of a thousand s:::"^s : I see ;hem. and anas 
they are invisible : at one moment their presence is tangible, 
and. suddenly — they are gone. I know not whither : nor have 
I power to retain the offered hand 

1 ' When his fair Angels would salute my palm." 
16* 



370 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

If- the reader will recall and carefully analyze the experi- 
ences of the circles in which the presence of Spirits may have 
been seen and felt, he will be surprised to discover how large 
a proportion of them are of such a nature as to preclude the 
acceptance of any materialistic hypothesis. All such exam- 
ples as do not admit of confirmation by the concurrent testi- 
mony of at least two senses — feeling and sight — must be ruled 
out of the category of materializations. Every form or sub- 
stance that is dense enough to be felt, may also be seen j and 
whenever either the visible or tangible form can not be both 
seen and felt at the same time, the observer may safely con- 
clude that the matter must be all in his eye or imagination, 
and would not turn the scales of the apothecary against one 
grain of mustard seed. 

The history and poetry of the early nations furnish impress- 
ive illustrations of the subject. The Spirits which appeared 
to mortals more than three thousand years ago do not appear 
to have been reincarnated. The classic reader may recall the 
experience of the hero of the ^Eneid. After betraying the cause 
of the Trojans, and deserting their city — leaving his companion 
behind in his flight — he returns once more, under cover of dark- 
ness, to inspect the melancholy scene, and to search among 
the ruins of Troy for his beloved Creusa.* He seeks the gates, 
and threads his way, "by the light of the flames." He visits 
the citadel, and wanders among the wasted treasures of temples 



* The traditional history of ^Eneas leaves the reader in doubt about 
many things. The poets do not entertain the idea that he betrayed the 
Trojans, but they maintain that the Greeks became masters of the city 
by stratagem. 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 3/ 1 

and palaces. The voice of his lamentation breaks the silence ; 
and the Poet makes ^Eneas say : 

' ' I have filled the streets with my cry ! " 

At length the shade of his lost Creusa appears to him, and en- 
deavors to soothe his immoderate grief. Thrice ^Eneas at- 
tempts to embrace the visible form that stands before him ; 
but his arms encircle no tangible object. Every time he essays 
to fold her to his bosom she eludes his grasp, even as " light 
winds " and " fleeting dreams " escape. * 

But I may be told that I am reasoning against some of the 
more important illustrations of materialization. Did not Col. 
Olcott deliberately — more than once — weigh the materialized 
body of the Indian maiden Honto, at Chittenden, and thus 
establish the fact of the specific gravity of her body ? Did he 
not thus demonstrate the truth, beyond rational controversy, 
that the visible form did actually weigh from fifty-eight to 
eighty-eight pounds — according to the varying degrees of ma- 
terialization, or the condensation of the earthly substances 
employed in the process ? Are we to dishonor the testimony 
of Mr. Olcott ; or did the scales lie ? We are not left to either 
alternative as a final conclusion. I accept the testimony of 
the Colonel to the facts, but not his inferences j and I shall by 
no means impeach the scales. The question concerning the 
weight of the Indian girl's body can not be finally decided on 
such evidence. The Spirit might have turned the balance at 
the same figures, and just as easily, without stepping on the 
platform of the scales at all. This has virtually been done 



The reader is referred to the Second Book of Virgil's yEneid. 



372 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

thousands of times. There is not a fact in Spiritualism more 
clearly demonstrated than the power of Spirits to apparently 
increase or diminish the specific gravity of animate and in- 
animate objects. If a grand piano can be lifted by Spirits, it 
may also be held down by the same agency, and with an equal 
force in addition to the full weight of the instrument. Small 
tables are held down with a force and firmness so irresistible 
that a strong man can not lift them ; and many tables have 
been pulled in pieces in the vain attempt to raise them from 
the floor in opposition to the voluntary action of the Spirits. 

But the table per se, really weighs no more when some spirit 
or mortal is holding it down. There are no visible or tangible 
materialized bodies on the tables to hold them down; and no 
such forms under them to hold them up. In the one case — 
when they rise — the Spirits do not take the ponderable sub- 
stance out of such objects ; and in the other — when they are 
held down — they do not put any additional material elements 
into them to increase their weight. TJicy simply exert a volun- 
tary force against the operation of the physical law. These effects 
may be just as well produced on a platform scale as on a table. 
What, then, becomes of the assumed gravity of the whole mat- 
ter in the case of the Indian maid ? It is not necessary for the 
Spirit to stand on the platform to turn the scale. She may be 
somewhere else, and do it quite as well, and vary her apparent 
weight at will, as the facts prove. What, then, is the truth of the 
matter in respect to the weight of Honto ? Why, there may be 
no matter^ in or about her, more ponderable than common air. 

The same power may be exerted on the medium. Charles 
W. Lawrence, with whom the writer experimented for several 



:v, r?: .-.:_v i :-vz=.5. 373 

months, many years ago, afforded a very striking illustration 
of the subject. His normal weight was only about one hun- 
dred and twenty-five pounds ; but when the Spirits held him 

c;"-v- :"ae uncced srrenaaa :::~: :: aae aces: ac^erdai aaa.eres 
could not lift him. He seemed to be riveted to the floor. The 
influence of the Spirits on Lawrence appeared to affect him as 
anger did a certain man who swore that when he was mad he 
zl nana .: :."■:. x 

In the cabinet manifestations the conditions imposed upon 
the spectator are generally such as to admit of the possible 
::::~:e ■:: scaae decepricn. A: Cdicrezden nae freearaa :: 
the investigator had its limitations. Tnese are shown, by 
" People from Another World," to have been of such a nature 
as :a excuse a rancnai skeacicisaa Kcrnc his i: :an j"_:c::'= 
certificate tha: she is a genuine spirit from aather world; 

: naceriaiieei. :ae India" airi can dance a acrnaia e. cenai: ;. 
mortal to hold her hand, feel her pulse, listen to the beating 
of her heart ; and still not lose her hold on the elements of 
the improvised bo a if will of course puzzle both our physi- 
cal ana aaecaahysicai aiaiicsaaners :: ccnceive :: :. ran; a:.. 
reason why the same sain: may nc: conduct the entire proc- 



could produce a :e— z : raiy z 

~—Z~ '.::::zz ~ : ~ r.'z. z':z~ 
7--- He : : _ai ils: re:i:i 
rlrelv r^-er i the hem's i:t 
pe-iteily in ±e rre?e-;e ::' - 
::re li—e ru'th; -ssizz. 'z'Jas, 



374 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

ess of materialization in the immediate presence of the spec- 
tators in some other part of the room, and without the screen 
of the cabinet. The writer has no disposition to be hyper- 
critical, or to indulge in unjust suspicions of persons when 
the evidence is inconclusive. It was Bacon who observed 
that " Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds, 
which ever fly by twilight." When more light is wanted, let 
us be generous and give the medium the benefit of every 
doubt. Whenever the phenomena are real (as no doubt they 
are in many cases), and the forms are both visible and tangible 
at the same time, and alike to all observers, it must be evident 
that the Spirit is clothed with material vestments. 

Many Spiritualists who ridicule the doctrine of the resur- 
rection of the physical body still believe that almost any Spirit 
may at will be temporarily reincarnated in a most literal sense. 
It is all the process of one minute ! Such a lively and all- 
embracing faith is rather calculated to put the believers in 
biblical miracles to shame. Such amazing faith was never 
found in the old Israel, nor anywhere else, unless it be among 
the willing disciples of Art Magic. I am little disposed to 
dogmatize about what the Spirits may, or may not, be able to 
do ; but in any case which involves the exercise of extraordi- 
nary powers, I think it wise to wait for demonstrative evi- 
dence. If such corporeal bodies as the writer and his readers 
possess to-day were really formed and suddenly vacated, there 
is every reason to presume that they would remain, like any 
other human form, and be subject to the laws which govern 
the natural chemistry of decay. A sudden disturbance of the 
circle would cause a Spirit to leave abruptly. The Spirit is 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 375 

human, and in such a case would no more stand on the order 
of his going than we should do under like circumstances. If 
determined to leave on the instant, is it likely that he would 
ever trouble himself about his cast-off garments ? No ; never ! 
If anything like a corporeal body had been formed, it would 
surely be left behind. But we are told that the Spirits disor- 
ganize and dissipate their bodies ! Is it possible ? And when 
was a human Spirit ever known to vaporize his earthly taber- 
nacle when he moved out ? If Spirits can do this for them- 
selves, we can see no reason why they may not do it for their 
mortal kindred. This would at once dispose of the cremation 
question, and save the enormous expense of fashionable fune- 
rals. I assume nothing, but I have an abiding conviction that 
no Spirit of a man ever left his organization without some one 
discovering a corpse. 

. Samuel did not leave so much as a thread of his mantle at 
Endor, when he vanished from the royal presence of Saul. 
Moses and Elias disappeared from Mount Tabor just after the 
transfiguration, but they appear to have left no perishable re- 
mains to speak of. The last time Jesus appeared to his dis- 
ciples after his resurrection, it is said that having led them 
out to Bethany, he was in the act of invoking a blessing 
upon his followers, when he "was parted from them," and 
they saw him no more. Another biographer, of more imag- 
inative mind, says " a cloud received him out of their sight." 
We read of no funeral at Bethany about that time, probably 
for the reason that Jesus' resurrected and materialized body 
was nowhere to be found. And those departed saints who 
reappeared in considerable numbers at the crucifixion, and 



376 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

were observed walking about Jerusalem — not one of them re- 
quired an undertaker. * And yet it is reasonable to suppose 
that if their own material bodies had been reconstructed, or 
others made like them, they would have inevitably followed 
the universal law in their decomposition. But the Spirits who 
come to us, and cause their presence to be seen and felt, 
leave no such bodies when they go. When the volition of 
the Spirit so determines, he is not here — he goes elsewhere, 
and his body is nowhere. They come when they will ; they 
remain as long as they are disposed to keep our company ; 
they leave at pleasure, without opening material doors ; but 
they never leave a subject for the dissecting table, nor the 
aroma of the charnel houses to remind us that a human soul 
has departed. 

Here I must take leave of the subject, though it opens into 
other and wider fields. In conclusion, I may be permitted 
to add that phenomena presenting all the superficial aspects 
of those which I have reviewed may be and frequently are 
produced by Spirits in the body. Apparitions of the living 
are numerous, and they may be multiplied at will. Spirits 
in the flesh may not only make their presence felt at great dis- 
tances ; but they may also act on the nerves of special sensation, 
so as to appear to clothe thems -elves with visible forms. This is 
demonstrated by numerous facts and experiments, and these 
effects may be, and often are, psychologically produced. The 
forms maybe either larger or smaller than natural, agreeably to 
the conception and desire of the controlling intelligence. In 
the language of the poet : 

*See Matthew's record of the Gospel, chap, xxvii. 52, 53. 



OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 377 

" Thus incorporeal Spirits to smaller forms 
Reduce their shapes immense." 

The method of producing these effects may be clearly ex- 
plained, and the power acquired by proper instruction and 
practice. All this can be done in the absence of elementary 
spirits ; the magic wand of the sorcerer is not required ; with- 
out invoking theshade of Cornelius Agrippa, and without either 
celestial magic or the black art. This is not the appropriate 
field for the growth of foul superstitions, but rather for the 
golden fruits of the grandest science. There are earnest and 
aspiring souls whose common law is progress. Emerging 
from the darkness of the past, they look with prescient vision 
into the Future for light. These have a taste for diviner 
things to which we would reverently minister. And so we 
abandon the ancient superstitions and turn our backs on the 
buried past. We leave the ruined fanes of polytheistic worship, 
the polluted shrines of fallen gods, and the society of all the 
puny godlings born of the diseased imagination. Those who 
prefer such society may 

" mingle in the clamorous fray 

Of squabbling imps." 

The modem magicians, the black art professors, and all the 
little jugglers who clothe their personations of Spirits with 
false faces and robes of York Mills muslin, are left to pursue 
their work of deception. We have only the most distant fel- 
lowship with such people. When knaves and fools behind 
the visor hide, we need not go to the masquerade. Let us 
dispense with the witches' cauldron and its deadly contents. 
We leave the bubbling hell-broth, described in Macbeth, to 



378 THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

those who have an appetite for such infernal compounds, 
whilst we study the principles of a purer faith and worship ; a 
science that admits of no unholy alliance with superstition, 
and that divine philosophy which is 

"the Patriarch's ladder, reaching Heaven, 

And bright with beckoning Angels." 

Time and distance can not separate souls. It is only lack 
of affinity that constitutes distance. The conditions of time 
and space belong in no essential sense to the Spirit -world. 
Mortal restraints and limitations have no place in the higher 
life. Such is the certain and irresistible gravitation in that 
world that no earthly bars can ever separate kindred spirits. 
Though on opposite sides of the globe, or far away in distant 
Spheres, they may meet and embrace one another. Oceans 
and mountains, long ages and immeasurable spaces may inter- 
vene, and yet each be conscious of the essential presence of 
the other. There may be sensible contact and a real inter- 
communication of human faculties, affections, emotions and 
aspirations. Whether in or out of the body, the willing and 
loving spirit may come to us in answer to our silent prayer, 
and we be made to realize its presence through all the quick- 
ened senses of the soul. 

" Far off their home may be, 
Beneath the glory of some Eastern sky, 
Or where bright isles amid blue waters lie ; 

And thou may'st no more see 
The forms which were their Spirits' earthly shrine, 
But, oh ! if thou wilt have them, THEY ARE thine ! " 

Belvidere, Warren Co., N. J., 
June 16, 1880. 



THE MATERIALIZATION QUESTION. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, JULY 3, 1880. 

THE article entitled " Our Spiritual Guests " contains the 
text of a discourse delivered before the Conference in 
Brooklyn. It has been employed as a pretext for much un- 
friendly criticism and hostility to the work of the Editor-at- 
Large and his friends. It has thus become so intimately identi- 
fied with the history of this enterprise that it seemed necessary 
to give it a place in this volume. The spirit of the opposition 
excited by its delivery and, more especially, by the author's 
acceptance of the office of Chief of the Secular Press Bureau 
will be readily apprehended by the reader of the Appendix to 
this volume. I have introduced two or three additional illus- 
trative facts and references, and have also been a little more 
explicit in the statement of the points which were liable to be 
misunderstood. 

It is necessary to mention the fact that several passages con- 
tained in the original manuscript were omitted in the delivery 
of the lecture, for want of time and for other reasons. Here 
and there the phraseology has been modified to adapt it to the 
press ; but the essential principles all remain j nor has any specific 
view, doctrine or illustration inculcated from the platform been 
changed by this revision. The intelligent reader will at once 
perceive that the particular observations which have so of- 

379 



38O THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION. 

fended the scribes were made in reference to three of the four 
classes of facts comprehended in our specification, and which the 
writer has shown, not only by his analysis and classification, but 
by internal evidence derived from the facts themselves, were not 
examples of materialization, though they are so regarded by 
ordinary observers. 

The views entertained are my own, and the freedom of their 
expression is no occasion for apology. They were not at first 
given to the public in my capacity of Editor-at-Large ; and 
no one is expected to share the responsibility of their utter- 
ance. That they will be cordially accepted by all minds I 
have perhaps no reason to expect. No favor is asked except 
a careful reading and a candid judgment. I neither claim 
infallibility in anything, nor immunity from just criticism. It 
is further proper to observe that my convictions may be modi- 
fied by future experience and further reflection. I am not 
uneasy about the acceptance of any views peculiar to myself. 
If I am right in the main, the opinions expressed will obtain 
confirmation ; if I am in error — on any questions of conse- 
quence involved in the general subject — I shall doubtless be 
corrected in due time ; but never by those impetuous and 
imperious critics who chiefly arrest public attention by their 
readiness to throttle other investigators at the very threshold 
of this inquiry. Whether these people can or can not agree 
with the writer, is of no possible consequence to any one. In- 
deed complete unanimity of opinion, on this or any other sub- 
ject, is neither possible nor desirable. Whoever wants to stifle 
independent thought would render the utterances of all men 
but empty echoes of a single voice ! 



A TWILIGHT MEDITATION. 38 1 

But it is very evident that we are much in need of the 
oneness described by Paul — " the unity of the spirit in 
the bond of peace." This is of the most vital importance 
to us all. Let us, therefore, practice a becoming moderation, 
and learn to tolerate the honest convictions of all men in the 
genuine spirit of charity. The true philosopher will treat the 
views of all other men with becoming consideration. He is 
always sparing of censure and he seldom engages in partisan 
strifes. There is a divinity in Peace y to which all pure souls 
are responsive ; 

" And,, when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods 
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. " 

S. B. B. 



A TWILIGHT MEDITATION. 

BY S. B. BRITTAN. 

I TARRY long and joy to hear, 
From happy voices, far and near, 
That darkest shadows of the Night, 
Like shapeless phantoms, take their flight 
In the fair Morning light. 

The way was dark, and rugged too, 
Up mountain heights from which to view 
The Star-land of the Wise, who must 
While living love, and work, and trust, 
With gentle souls and just. 

I travel on my lonely way, 
And, musing at the close of day, 
Recall the scenes when life was new, 
And dearest forms now lost to view, 
Where life and love are true. 



382 A TWILIGHT MEDITATION. 

The sylvan aisles are silent where 
Soft music voiced the vibrant air ; 
The falling leaves are brcwn and sere, 
And autumn days of life are here, 

With mem'ries sad and dear. 

The early Summer birds have flown 
To fair and sunny lands unknown ; 
While music from some higher sphere 
Comes softly to the souls that hear, 
When Angels hover near. 

The singing birds in woodland bowers, 
Returning with the early flow'rs, 

Will cheer the passing hours — 
While ministries of Sun and Rain 
Bring to the valley and the plain 

The perished life again. 

I linger where the shadows fall, 
Beneath a cypress -shaded wall 

Of a deserted hall; 
And voices of the loved once more 
Recall the happy days of yore — 

From their immortal shore. 

In looking through the veil of Time, 
To fairer skies in worlds sublime, 

I hear the pleasant chime 
Of joy-bells where there is no Night, 
And happy faces, calm and bright, 

Shine in the blessed light 

29 Broad Street, Newark, N. J. , ) 
March, 1882. f 



APPENDIX A. 



REPLY TO HON. THOMAS R. HAZARD. 

REVIEW OF THE CRITICS AND THE SITUATION. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, JULY IO , l88o. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

IN the Banner of Light of the date of the 26th inst. I find a let- 
ter from Thomas R. Hazard, in which that gentleman refers 
to the report of my Brooklyn lecture on " Form Materialization," 
and respectfully calls upon me to " lay before the readers of the 
Banner a true statement of the views" which I do entertain and 
did express — very imperfectly no doubt — in my lecture before the 
"Spiritual Fraternity." In respect to the chief purpose of your 
correspondent's letter, I have anticipated the request of this invin- 
cible champion of Spiritualism, by having already placed in your 
hands for publication the complete text of my lecture, with such 
further illustrative facts and explanatory observations as the nature 
of the case seemed to demand. I trust that I have been sufficiently 
explicit to guard against future misunderstanding, and that the 
spirit of the whole may further realize the wishes of the distin- 
guished friend who has been pleased to call me to account for 
" evasive language and unbecoming personalities." It will be per- 
ceived by all who will take the time to peruse my exposition, that my 
method of handling a difficult question is anything but " evasive "; 

383 



384 APPENDIX A. 

and that / have not — to borrow the terms of less friendly critics — 
"dodged the question." 

I see no reason why equal and exact justice should not be meted 
out to all men ; and whatever I claim for myself I demand with 
no less emphasis in behalf of the humblest disciple in our ranks. 
Your correspondent is, I must suppose, aware of the fact that I am 
arraigned without ceremony before the bar of public opinion, and 
directly accused of several offenses against the truth and the integ- 
rity of my relations to the Spiritual Brotherhood. Let us briefly 
recall some of the counts in this indictment. Here are the princi- 
pal charges : 

1. That I am trying to organize another sectarian institution 
which may retard the genuine progress and damage the future 
prospects of Spiritualism. 

2. That I do not really believe in the most important facts of 
Spiritualism ; that I have publicly denied the reality of the same, 
and especially the power of the Spirits to compel the recognition of 
their presence by the manifestation of visible and tangible forms. 

3. That I am trying to hold on to the name and form of Chris- 
tianity from selfish motives ; and that in this respect my preten- 
sions are a hollow "sham . . . that deceives nobody." 

4. That my "Spiritualism is blighted, dead with the dry-rot of 
aping respectability." 

5. It is charged that I " dogmatically dictate to Spiritualists what 
they are to believe and disbelieve." 

6. It is presumed that I may have stigmatized — at least by impli- 
cation — all who do not adopt my views on the materialization ques- 
tion as either knaves or fools. 

Now if the accused may be supposed to have any rights in this 
case, I may be permitted to say that / have never, at any time, 
even attempted to do any one of the things here specified. It is 
to be regretted that many people are disposed to infer that personal 



APPENDIX A. 385 

charges, when not contradicted, may be presumed to be true. 
While in the interest of truth, and for the sake of my friends, I am 
constrained to dispute each and every one of the foregoing- charges, 
it gives me great pleasure to pardon the authors of this unseemly 
exhibition of childish feeling and unprovoked hostility. So long as 
we mind our own business, conscientiously perform the appointed 
duty of the hour, and never meddle with the affairs of others, we 
need not be angered because some uneasy and contentious spirit 
drops a sheep-skin gauntlet in our path. Such people can not 
greatly ruffle the even current of our life. 

" The blood more stirs 
To rouse a lion, than to start a hare." 

Not knowing how many turbulent spirits were waiting for an op- 
portunity to bring a railing accusation against me, I did not think 
it necessary to publicly refer — in any unfavorable manner — to the 
report of my Brooklyn lecture. Omitting to do this, it is presumed 
that I accept the exact terms of that report as my own. The facts 
justify no such inference. Every one at all familiar with journal- 
ism will readily perceive that in making a brief synopsis of a dis- 
course which occupies at least an hour in the delivery, it is utterly 
impossible to give the speaker's language. On this point no evi- 
dence is required except such as the nature of the case affords. If 
the facts are that the lecture, printed in extenso, would fill a page 
of this paper, and yet the report is to be compressed into much less 
than a single column, it ought to be self-evident to the dullest com- 
prehension, that the reporter can not record the exact language 
of the speaker. If the critic can do this, he may next time put his 
bushel of small potatoes into a peck measure and have space to 
spare for other purposes. Nothing can be more preposterous than 
the proposition to hold the speaker responsible for the precise terms 
of such a report. Mr. Hazard had the sagacity to see this, and the 



386 APPENDIX A. 

politeness to qualify his own critical observations by the implied 
admission that the report may not clearly and fully represent the 
views expressed in the Brooklyn lecture. The most that any re- 
porter — however qualified for his appropriate work — can be ex- 
pected to do in such a case, is to give the public some intelligible 
idea of the drift of the speaker's thought, with perhaps an incom- 
plete representation of the method of his argument, the general 
course of illustration, and the ultimate conclusion. This is what 
Mr. S. B. Nichols attempted to do with a conscientious regard for 
the truth ; and he succeeded about as well as those w r ho make re- 
porting a profession. 

My inquisitorial censors, intent upon convicting me of some mis- 
demeanor, seized on certain passages in the report with the mani- 
fest purpose of making it appear that I do not believe Spirits have 
the power of making their forms visible and tangible to mortals. 
Yet, in that same report, I am credited with saying: " Spirits have 
come to me in broad daylight, spoken to me, taken me by the hand, 
and ma7tifested themselves in cou7itless ways; history, sacred 
and profane, is full of similar examples." Now while I did not 
employ the exact terms attributed to me in this case, I certainly 
did say much to the same purpose. If this passage has any signi- 
ficance whatever, it certainly means that I did affirm, most posi- 
tively, my faith in the ability of Spirits to reveal themselves to 
both sight and touch. My lecture was written out; and are my 
thoughts so loosely conceived and carelessly expressed as to war- 
rant the presumption that I contradicted myself in the same lec- 
ture ? Why, then, was the passage I have emphasized not used by 
those conscientious critics to qualify the apprehended meaning of 
the other ? Plainly because such a qualification was not wanted. 
It would have defeated the obvious intention of the censors, who, 
per saltum, had reached the only conclusion which favored the de- 
termination to limit my personal influence and destroy my public 



APPENDIX A. 387 

usefulness in the capacity of Editor-at-Large. It was a foregone 
conclusion that I must be found guilty at least of some breach of 
decorum. Several parties — all of whom shall be nameless in this 
connection — have assisted in this unrighteous crusade by unworthy 
appeals to popular prejudices. Indeed, after I had disclaimed the 
views and purposes attributed to me, in public statements over my 
own proper signature, these hypercritical censors were not satis- 
fied, but with a shameless pertinacity still insisted that I did ex- 
press the views and doctrines I have repudiated '.* I forbear to 
characterize this audacious spirit as it deserves. Among well-bred 
gentlemen of course each is allowed to define his own position, on 
any and every controverted question, and no one presumes to dis- 
pute the truth of his statements. 

Several correspondents of certain Spiritual papers, and some of 
the editorial writers for the same, complain of my excessive egotism, 
exhibited in the unwarrantable assumption of power in presuming, 
as Editor-at-Large, to represent the ideas and interests of any 
other Spiritualist in the world. The truth is we have assumed 
nothing, except the right to labor peaceably, and without molesta- 
tion, in the field to which we have been called by the Spirit-world 
and the expressed desire of many of the most enlightened Spiritual- 
ists in the country. If we have managed to devote, here and there, 
one, two, or more columns of some influential secular paper, to a 
just representation of the righteous claims of Spiritualism and its 
friends, are our labors in this direction to be considered an offense 
against those who not only contribute nothing to the work, but are 
most industrious in throwing obstacles in its way ? Are the en- 
lightened and noble men and women, who have generously con- 
tributed a small fund to enable the writer to labor for a season in 



* It will be observed that my amiable critics were not present when the lecture 
was delivered, and not one of them ever saw a single paragraph of its contents before 
venturing on a free expression of his views of the whole matter. 



388 APPENDIX A. 

this important field, to be periodically and forever told that they 
have made a grave mistake in wasting their means on an unworthy 
person and a useless enterprise ? Are these shallow pretenders to 
a love of truth and to freedom of thought the only people who have 
any rights which others are bound to respect ? And is there to be 
no end to this unmeasured insolence ? If in the contributions to 
the secular press there is an unwarrantable assumption of power, 
on the part of the present writer, are those gentlemen less p're- 
sumptuous who once a week fill a whole paper ostensibly for the 
same object ? Yet the public is expected to infer that the delicate 
sensibilities and supreme modesty of certain correspondents and 
other journalistic writers have been fearfully shocked by our amaz- 
ing self-assertion. Those gentlemen have lectured us on delicacy 
and propriety until we have been ready to exclaim : 

' ' Did ever raven sing so like a lark ! " 

After all this we may be fairly authorized to infer that our self- 
appointed censors do not presume to speak for any one but them- 
selves. No ; not for their patrons. That would be a violation of 
their principles, and they are too modest to be guilty of the small- 
est usurpation or improper exercise of power. How they shrink 
from prerogatives is a conundrum we cannot guess. But there is 
something very lovely in humility ! Dickens has drawn and im- 
mortalized the character in his David Copperfield. Some of the 
recent actors may be overdoing the role; but that is small cause 
for censorious criticism when humility is constitutional. Verily, 
your journalistic Uriah must be "the humblest person going." 

But if these humble people, who put their superior modesty in the 
papers, do not presume to speak for any one but themselves, what 
interest can the people be expected to have in their public labors ? 
If it is indeed true that they shrink from the responsibility of repre- 
senting anybody else, the fact should be known, that the Spiritual 



APPENDIX A. 389 

public may understand and sufficiently admire these modest writers 
on the great themes of phenomenal Spiritualism and journalistic 
propriety. They labor early and late ; they go to their work in the 
morning ; and they consume the midnight petroleum before they 
retire. They keep on talking all the while, not because they have 
any ambitious desire to voice the current thought of the people, or 
ever expect to illustrate the ideas of the living age. They are too 
humble to indulge in such aspirations. Not for these ignoble ends 
do they live, and move, and have their being — speak and write, 
print and sell their papers — no, never ; but/<?r the supreme pleas- 
ure of hearing themselves converse. What amazing diffidence 
and self-abnegation ! 

That the charges herein reviewed are not only thorougniy per- 
sonal and absolutely unfounded, but characterized by a feeling that 
is hostile to every principle of reciprocal justice and spiritual fra- 
ternity, must be evident to every honest mind. It is no less a self- 
evident fact, that an answer to these, or any similar charges, to be 
at all pertinent, must also, ex necessitate, assume a personal char- 
acter. At the same time, I am not prepared to plead guilty to the 
charge of using " unbecoming personalities.' 1 '' To fairly decide 
the question of what is, and what is not, becoming in any given 
case, all of the facts and circumstances must be fairly weighed. 
When one is arraigned for any crime or misdemeanor, he is not 
expected to weaken his defense to save the sensibilities of his ac- 
cusers. He is never required to look after their reputation for fair 
and honorable dealing, if the case breaks down for want of evi- 
dence to sustain the charge. Your honorable correspondent — if I 
am not mistaken — has had experience as a legislator. I am sure 
he respects the truth, and I have faith in his own high sense of 
justice. If he will carefully examine all the facts, I will have no 
hesitation in resting this particular question — with a wise reference 
to the merits of the case — on his own final judgment. I am greatly 



39° APPENDIX A. 

mistaken, or it will be found, on a searching and candid revision of 
the whole matter, that I have used no terms which, if employed in 
debate, would have subjected me to a call to order before any de- 
liberative assembly in the world. Shall we have peace, and when ? 
With a profound respect for your correspondent and every hon- 
est seeker after truth, I have the honor to remain, 

Yours faithfully, S. B. BRITTAN. 

Belvidere, Warren Co., N. J., 
June 24, 1880. 



REJOINDER TO THOMAS R. HAZARD. 

OUR FINAL ANSWER TO OUR REVIEWER. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, OCT. 16, 1880. 

11 Never came Reformation in a flood 

With such a heady current, scouring faults." 

— Shakespeare. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

IT was on the 16th of June last that I forwarded to your office 
for publication my analysis and exposition of several classes 
of facts, all of which are now indiscriminately regarded by many 
persons as examples of '.' the materialization of Spirit-forms." My 
views had been perversely misrepresented ; and with a persistency 
for which I could recall no precedent from my early experience in 
a sectarian church. My object in thus publishing the views which 
had already been embodied in a written lecture — originally de- 
livered in Republican Hall, New York, and subsequently in Brook- 
lyn — was to satisfy the honest inquiries of many friends, and to 
place myself before the public in my own proper position. My 



APPENDIX A. 39I 

article, entitled " Our Spiritual Guests," had not appeared, but the 
complete manuscript of the same was in your office, when — in your 
issue of June 26th — you published a letter from Mr. 'Thomas R. 
Hazard, which seemed, at least, to have been intended to provoke 
an unpleasant, personal controversy with the undersigned. In 
that letter the gentleman from Rhode Island indulged in a spirit 
of unjust animadversion in commenting on my answer to a cor- 
respondent whose captious criticism had been published in the 
Chicago paper. 

In Mr. Hazard's letter, now under review, he insists that he is 
one of many whom " Dr. B., if correctly reported, . . . charges 
by implication as being either a fool or a knave ; " and he also 
affirms that I have " stigmatized as tricksters" "scores of the in- 
struments of the angels." It is with a feeling of sorrow that I am 
constrained — in the interest of truth, and in simple justice to my 
self— to say that these statements were then, and they are now, 
utterly destitute of the smallest foundation in anything I have 
either written or otherwise expressed in my intercourse with 
the piiblic. It is no fault of mine that I am summoned here to 
impeach the testimony of a too anxious witness for the prosecu- 
tion, whose many years should have taught him to weigh his own 
words, and to preserve a decent respect for those who may hon- 
estly dissent from his dogmatic conclusions on a question — ?iot of 
fact, but of philosophy. In that letter your correspondent called 
upon me in a rather peremptory manner to " lay before the readers 
of the Banner of Light a. true statement of the views he [I] did 
express in the lecture before the Brooklyn Spiritual Frater- 
nity." The dictatorial spirit of the writer was rendered still more 
apparent and offensive by his admonishing me to " abstain as far 
as possible from the use of evasive language and unbecoming 
personalities ; " and further, by his directing me — as one might 
instruct his own servant— to " use the language only suitable to 



392 APPENDIX A. 

the dignity of his [my] new and responsible position of Editor-at- 
Large." 

As already observed, before this letter was published, or I had 
received any intimation of the explicit instructions which were then 
ready to be made public — for no apparent purpose but my individ- 
ual guidance, except to preoccupy and prejudice the public mind 
— I had actually finished the work assigned me, and it was in 
your possession. This will enable the reader to perceive that the 
entire freedom from "evasive language" and the absence of" un- 
becoming personalities " in my exposition are facts which can not 
be attributed to the influence of instructions I had not then re- 
ceived, and in which, it will be observed, Mr. Hazard's language 
is scarcely less imperious than the short method of a sight draft or 
the terms of a military order. 

To this most unbecoming epistle I answered — in the Banner of 
Light of July ioth — and in a manner which I am sure every can- 
did person must regard as exceedingly temperate and conciliatory, 
passing over the writer's offensive speech and supercilious tone in the 
interest of peace and fraternity. Both the temper and terms of my 
reply were altogether friendly to Mr. Hazard. But the respectful 
language in which I reasoned the case, and appealed to his own 
sense of justice, made no impression on the mind of the man who 
had called for the publication of my lecture, not because he wanted 
information on that subject, or had any disposition to treat my 
opinions with respect ; but for the obvious reason that he had 
determined to find a pretext for a long, aimless and useless dis- 
cussion. My views had been somewhat elaborately set forth in 
the article on "Our Spiritual Guests, '' and there I had determined 
to let the whole matter rest. With all due respect — and remem- 
bering that time is valuable and life is short — I had never for one 
moment contemplated anything so fruitless, dreary and prospect- 
ively interminable as a controversy with Mr. Hazard on the subject 



APPENDIX A. 393 

of his choice. I have never invited him to any such discussion, 
and am obliged to respectfully decline his own most persuasive in- 
vitations. Should he resolve to go on with his battle, I shall be 
most happy to give him the whole field for the display of his 
prowess, and leave him all the glory which a Quixotic ambition may 
hope to achieve. 

That Mr. Hazard was impatient for such a contest was rendered 
still more apparent from his letter which appeared in the succeed- 
ing number of the Banner of Light (date of July 17th). Referring 
to two of my articles, which he proposed to criticise in due time, 
he thus continued : 

1 ' I would feel obliged if Dr. Brittan would favor me (through the post- 
office) with the original manuscript in which he intimates in his last 
article his 'lecture was written out,' pledging myself to return it to him 
in a short time after I receive it. I am impressed that with the aid of 
this document I could obtain sufficient light to greatly simplify the mat- 
ters in controversy. I would also be greatly obliged to Dr. Brittan if he 
would write out in a condensed form (as I suggested in my previous 
letter) the names of the materializing mediums through whose instru- 
mentality he has obtained his knowledge of the great and advanced phe- 
nomena of Form Materialization, together with a succinct narrative of 
some of the manifestations that have occurred in his presence." 

To the letter from which the preceding paragraph is copied I 
have hitherto made no reply. I may here observe that the animus 
of this passage is too manifest to admit of any disguise. The first 
part contains a sly but deliberate intimation that my views, as pub- 
lished in the Banner of Light, on the subject of materialization, 
are not really my views at all ; that they are very different from the 
doctrines expressed in my lecture. In other words, that as a 
writer for the press I take occasion to contradict the views and 
opinions which I inculcate from the platform. Perhaps your cor- 
respondent did not know that this insinuation not only lacks the 
grace of common politeness, but that it is too absurd to require 



394 APPENDIX A. 

serious notice. In the absence of any motive for so doing no man 
who is not a lunatic could be made to believe that I am at work to 
disprove my own convictions. 

In the same connection Mr. Hazard proceeds " as one having 
authority'' to assign me my task. He would have "the names of 
all the materializing mediums" in whose presence I have pursued 
my investigations, " together with a succinct narrative of some of 
the manifestations." Of course, in so far as the facts chanced to 
deviate from the line of the gentleman's experience he would natu- 
rally demand corroborative evidence. To authenticate everything 
to the satisfaction of one who believes in the infallibility of the 
vision of unlimited faith — while he has little knowledge of the laws 
of mind, and, apparently, less respect for the reason of the race — it 
might be necessary to send abroad for witnesses, and to collect and 
publish extensive memoranda ; and, after all, it is not likely that the 
views of your venerable correspondent would be modified in the 
smallest degree. 

Here let me say that my experience in the observation of Spirit- 
forms covers a period of thirty -four years, and to do any kind of 
justice to the work which the gentleman calls on me to perform — 
for the small purpose of his own personal gratification — would oc- 
cupy all my time for two or three months. Now I can not regard 
this call from South Portsmouth, R. I., imperative as it is, as the 
voice of divine Providence which every minister of the everlasting 
Gospel should reverently obey. Nor is this the vox populi on 
which time-servers wait with earnest attention. No ; it is only 
one man who speaks. Solitary and alone, of his own free will 
and pleasure, Brother Hazard summons me to this work, to fur- 
ther his own private ahns ; and it is hardly creditable to his. 
sense of justice that he does not propose to make any provision for 
my mortal necessities while engaged in his service. As I am just 
now employed, and can not leave my duties to be discharged by 



APPENDIX A. 395 

another, let those bid for the contract who enjoy the fellowship of 
the " Scribes and Pharisees " ; of whom it was said by a noble 
Spiritual Reformer — they " compass sea and land to make one 
PROSELYTE." (Matt, xxiii. 15.) 

The gentleman from Rhode Island assigned the following as his 
reason for demanding my original manuscript : " I am impressed 
that with the aid of this document I could obtain sufficient light 
to greatly simplify the matters in controversy." Bearing in mind 
the fact that I was not engaged in a discussion with Mr. Hazard, 
and did not propose to have any controversy with him, either on 
materialization or any other subject, the reader will recognize the 
inverted sense of modesty that prompted the offer of his services in 
so simplifying my obscure utterances that they may be understood 
by ordinary mortals. It may be proper to observe, in this connec- • 
tion, that I had never before been admonished that I was in need 
of the benevolent offices of any one in this capacity. Moreover, if 
it was indeed necessary — in order to dissipate the fog that is pre- 
sumed to envelop the expression of my ideas — that some one should 
be employed to simplify the method of their statement ; to explain 
the " true inwardness " of the letter and the form ; or perhaps to 
put some new meaning into the same which the author never 
dreamed of, it may still occur to the mind of the considerate reader 
that even eminent authorities lose nothing by graceful condescen- 
sion, and that the writer's privilege should have been recognized 
in the choice of the party to fill this place. But he was neither in- 
terviewed on the subject, nor permitted to have any voice in the 
matter. Mr. Hazard — waiving all unnecessary ceremony — offered 
himself for the office, and the same party, with great unanimity, 
elected the candidate. While we failed to discover the necessity 
for his services, and omitted to entertain him in his new capacity, 
he, nevertheless, made haste to enter upon the work set before 
him. In his own peculiar analysis and interpretation of the writer's 



396 APPENDIX A. 

article on Our Spiritual Guests, your readers will have witnessed 
the surprising result of his first effort in the simplification of our 
ideas. 

Now I do not propose to go meandering after Mr. Hazard all the 
way over his tortuous course. I should as soon think of following 
the shade of Moses along the crooked line of his march through 
the Egyptian wilderness. On the contrary, I only design to glance 
at him, here and there, to illustrate the amazing method by which 
he simplifies my views' on the materialization question. Perhaps I 
may be expected, in transitu, to express my thanks for such im- 
mense publicity as your correspondent has been pleased to give me. 
He devotes nearly twelve columns of your space to his review, or 
almost double the room required by Our Spiritual Guests. I find in 
addition to twenty-two references to the " Professor, " Doctor," 
and " Editor-at-Large," that the gentleman from Rhode Island re- 
peats my name — or uses the initial with one title or another, one 
hundred and twenty-four times. Verily — if never before — now, 
surely, our name must be " a household word," far and wide as 
your illuminated Banner is unfurled. If I am not greatly elated 
on this occasion, it may be for the reason that I am not easily 
deceived. Beneath the superficial aspects of this unusual distinc- 
tion I recognize the purpose of the writer. My cognomen is chiefly 
used by Mr. Hazard in connection with most disparaging estimates 
of my intelligence, the sincerity of my professions and the value of 
my public labors. The case is not altogether peculiar. Every 
earnest man who goes straight forward in the prosecution of any 
good work, must take his chances of being scratched in the jungles 
of this world and harassed by adversaries in the rear. He is fortu- 
nate who only now and then finds a small thorn in his flesh. Even 
the man who spends his time in play must incur some risk, and he 
gives form to his resolution when he says : 

" / will stand the hazara of the die" 



APPENDIX A. 397 

Whoever will wage an uncompromising war with error, by fol- 
lowing Truth, Reason, and his deepest convictions, wherever thev 
mav lead, will find that life is not a mere holiday entertainment. 
Xow and then he will feel the sting of the scorpion ; and some- 
where the cold, dark shadow of the cross will fall athwart his 
strait and narrow way. But he is a poor soldier who turns back 
to seek the flowery walks and those peaceful scenes where indiffer- 
ence inspires the sluggard's dreams. If we would be worthy of the 
great Liberty wherewith "the truth shall make us free." we must 
follow our highest light faithfully, fearlessly and to the end, though 

' ' At our heels all hell should rise 
With blackest insurrection ! " 

If further evidence should be required to satisfy the reader that 
Mr. Hazard neither sought for nor cared to have an honest expres- 
sion of the writer's real views on the subject of materialization, that 
evidence may be found at the beginning of his long-winded appeal 
to popular ignorance and the prejudices of a class of persons whom 
we have never consciously injured by word or deed. That I may 
do him no injustice I quote his words literally as follows : 

" If Dr. Brittan will read my letter a little more carefully than he ap- 
pears to have done, he will perceive that / do not ask him to state his pri- 
vate views in regard to Form Materialization^ tliat being a matter which I 
have no right to interfere with in any way, as long as his views are 7iot pub- 
licly proclaimed. "* 

Here it is distinctly implied that I entertain views in private 
which are at war with my written and published opinions. Yet, 
strange as it may seem, there is not, in this connection, a single 
word to indicate that there is anything in this kind of deception to 
offend the moral sense of a critic whose cacoethes carpeyidi moves 



* I emphasize the significant portions of this extract. 



398 APPENDIX A. 

him, with several other careless writers, to assume the office of 

public censor. 

'■ Poor man ! poor critics ! He and they 
The same impulsive force obey." 

It would seem that a man may be a Janus-faced hypocrite and 
live a lie — false, of necessity, in heart and at home — and yet we are 
left to infer that this does not justify one in meddling with his 
affairs. Our captious critic does not hesitate to meddle with and 
arraign us for our honest convictions ; nor does he scruple to mis- 
represent our views and conduct ; but — overcome by a sudden 
paroxysm of modesty — he claims "no right to interfere with" this 
soulless masquerade, " so long as his [my] views are not publicly 
proclaimed." In other words, so long' as the principal actor is 
prudently retice?it and careful to wear a beco?ning ?nask while 
he is 011 exhibition / 

Now I need not remind your readers that, so far from disguising 
my convictions on any important question, they have for more than 
forty years — on all proper occasions — found a free and fearless ex- 
pression, all temporal interests being held in subordination to the 
truth. The gentleman from Rhode Island not only overrates his 
personal influence, but he may possibly hazard his reputation for 
veracity, by telling people who have known me long and well 
that for more than a third of a century I have been masquerading 
before them like a fool, with nothing to conceal my real character 
but the false face and rent mantle of the hypocrite ! 

Mr. Hazard reports that he finds my paper on Our Spiritual 
Guests to be " couched in fifty-five paragraphs." In respect to one- 
quarter of all these he is content to garble and re-state the sub- 
stance of the same after his own peculiar fashion, without com- 
ment, and with as much self-complacency as if his own superior 
style involved a discovery likely to mark an epoch in polemical 
literature. He seems to indulge in the childish fancy that in thus 



APPENDIX A. 399 

mutilating- the original he has made an improvement upon the 
writer's method of expressing his ideas, and incidentally given the 
rest of mankind a new and important lesson in belles-lettres. All 
through his stilted harangue he, here and there, breaks the un- 
even and knotted thread of his disputatious discourse, to keep up 
the by-play of the schoolmaster, by lecturing me on the proprieties 
of speech. He has a mortal dread of " personalities," and pro- 
fesses to regard them as " unbecoming " the character of a gentle- 
man and a scholar. True, he uses offensive terms with remark- 
able freedom in his published corresponcl%nce, but he is careful at 
the same time to instruct the Editor-at-Large — to whom they are 
chiefly applied— to " use the language only suitable to the dignity 
of his new and responsible position.'' With what degree of sin- 
cerity Mr. Hazard preaches to me upon the impropriety of " per- 
sonalities," which I have not used, may be inferred from the illus- 
trations furnished by himself for the delectation of his readers. 
Examples like the following are numerous as potato-bugs in his 
recent exegetical writings.* [The reader is requested to peruse 
the subjoined note.] 



* Only a few choice specimens are necessary to give the reader an idea of their 
general quality ; also of our critic's conscientiousness as a reviewer, and of the ample 
resources of his magazine of small arms. It will be observed that he is eminently free 
from all restraints in the use of vituperative speech. In his untruthful characteriza- 
tion of the Editor-at-Large and his labors he speaks of his " characteristic flings ; " of 
his " condemnatory dictum of the whole fraternity ; " of his " having freed his bosom of 
the ' perilous stuff ' " that was in it ; of "'a laughing devil in his sneer ; ' " of the " re- 
ceptacle of bigotry, malice and suspicion ;" of the " untold amount of self-conceit ;" 
of his " crude and worn-out puerilities ;" of the Doctor's " fiftieth covert fling at the 
materializing manifestations ; " of his " educated self-sufficiency ;" and again and re- 
peatedly of his " flings " and u intolerable puerilities." This is quite sufficient to en- 
able the reader to recognize the impersonal character and elegance of the reviewer s 
diction. If he seems to be wanting in several amiable qualities of mind and heart, 
and a certain heavenly disposition toward his fellow-men, irmust at least be con- 
ceded that this epithetic epistolizer has a remarkable style. 

And then it may not be forgotten that the Spirit of the ancient pharisee came at this 
juncture and materialized through our critic. And it came to pass when that Spirit 
had taken possession of our brother, and had the medium under complete control, he 
lifted up his hands in holy indignation, and cried with a loud voice, saying, " / thank 



4°0 APPENDIX A. 

Allow me to observe in passing that when Mr. Hazard pretends to 
quote my words, he does it so heedlessly that my language is, here 
and there, corrupted, and the meaning utterly obscured. By his 
blundering I am made to dishonor the venerable shade of Lindley 
Murray, and to show my contempt for the rules of English gram- 
mar. For an example, see a paragraph near the middle of the 
second column of the last division of his so-called review of Our 
Spiritual Guests, where he makes me say, History, sacred and 
profane, " are " full of such examples. Let us hope to make our 
peace with the offended ghosts of the grammarians by saying that 
this is not our work. The critic himself is the author of " his- 
tory . . are full." 

This same gentleman is liable to substitute words of his own for 
those of the author he is reviewing. An example of this class 
will be found in the upper portion of the same column, near the 
close of a long extract, where — in his office of simplifier — he man- 
ages to confuse your readers by destroying the sense of the author's 
language. There, without authority or reason, he makes me 
responsible for this passage : They feed on miracles with an 
" omniferous " appetite ! This word is derived from the Latin, 



God I have no belief in so ghastly a doctrine / " What " doctrine ? " It may be nec- 
essary to explain here the nature of this terrible " doctrine," which is qualified by an 
adjective meaning-, according to Webster, "/ale, death-like, ghost-like, and hor- 
rible /" Now the reader will be surprised to know that by u ghastly doctrine " the 
Pharisaical Spirit, speaking through Bro. Hazard, merely refers to our suggestion 
concerning the probable manner in which Honto turned the scales at Chittenden 
when Colonel Olcott weighed her. This frightful, so-called "doctrine" which so 
shocked the materialized Spirit of the pharisee, and thrilled the nerves of his chosen 
medium, is all embraced in the simple intimation that the Indian Maiden may have 
turned the scale without stepping on the platform ! Would you believe it possible 
that it was 

" Merely this, and nothing more " ? 

But the croaking of the raven is an omen dire ! What a monstrous doctrine, to 
be sure! And how can an Editor-at-Large atone for such atrocious wickedness? 
'* The mountain labored " in Rhode Island, and no less a personage than Jehovah is 
summoned to behold the outcome ! 



APPENDIX A. 401 

and means all-bearing j or productive of all kinds. Hence I am 
made to say, They feed on miracles with an all-bearing appetite — 
an appetite that produces all kinds. [Thus, according to our 
simplifier, appetite is the producing cause of all miracles !] In- 
stead of this unintelligible jargon, the word the writer used was 
omnivorous, which is defined by Webster to mean all-devouring j 
eating everything indiscriminately . It will be perceived that the 
term we really employed is significant, and that it has a manifest 
relation to feeding and to appetite. The extreme gullibility of some 
people — who do little or nothing in this world but hunt for and 
exhibit whatever most excites our wonder — justifies the observa- 
tion that they feed on miracles with an omnivorous or all-devouring 
appetite. 

We have always cherished a profound faith in the veracity of 
figures ; but our confidence would be shaken, just now, if we did 
not reflect that it is no fault of the figures if Bro. Hazard changes 
the numbers. This is one phase of his exuberant liberty, and of 
his new process of simplification, of which we have an example in 
the fourth column of the last instalment of his review, where he 
deliberately takes twenty-five pounds from the normal weight of 
Charles Lawrence, thus making it an even hmidred. It is true 
that this quarter of a hundred once had something to do with the 
physical perfection and manly proportions of our friend ; but it is 
not of much consequence now, since in the parlance of this world 
Lawrence, I believe, is dead ; and while living he always seemed 
to care so little for the material clothing of his spirit, that I am 
sure he will never pursue the party who has contrived to make 
way with so much of his old wardrobe. He was not the man 
to quarrel about trifles. And of what possible use was so much 
common dust to the spirit ? There is no occasion to indemnify 
Lawrence for his loss. 

But all this is quite harmless compared with the venomous mat- 



402 APPENDIX A. 

ter which proceeds from the same source. The perversity of our 
critic is revealed in a most surprising manner in the third column 
of the first part of his review. Assuming, in his own peculiar style 
of offensive dogmatism, that I not only entertain but have expressed 
just such views as he chooses to attribute to me, he goes on in the 
following strain, employing the language which he had previously 
used in one of his own letters : 

" As I have remarked in my letter, it would seem to follow most con- 
clusively that ' every materializing medium on either continent, in whose 
presence tangible Spirit-forms have been presented, must have been a 
trickster ; and every investigator and witness who have given credence to 
the actuality of the phenomena as genuine, tangible materialized forms, 
have been either dupes or knaves.' " 

It will be observed that while Mr. Hazard incidentally admits 
that this language is all his own, he includes the same, beginning 
with the word "every" in the second line, in quotation marks, as 
if it were borrowed from some other author ; and to the end, as 
it would seem, that the reader, losing sight of his verbal admission 
at the beginning, may hold the present writer responsible for such 
language. I am pained to think that any man, who either claims 
to represent the higher phases of Spiritualism or to have a decent 
respect for human nature and fair dealing, could possibly descend 
so low as to resort to such a device. I do not affirm that this was 
the design of the gentleman who assumes to be my teacher. On 
the contrary, I should be pleased to know that it was not. But 
what is the evidence of the succeeding context ? Here it is, and 
the reader will form his own judgment. The extract is a part of 
the same paragraph from which the foregoing passage not ex- 
cepting the writer's defective grammar — is taken, and it directly 
follows the preceding extract in unbroken connection : 

" It seems almost impossible that any man professing to be a Spiritual- 
ist, however gifted by nature with talents or endowed by education with 



APPENDIX A. 4O3 

learning, should venture to bring such astounding charges against the 
scores of materializing mediums and thousands of investigators and be- 
lievers in that phase of the phenomena, without being prepared to sustain 
them by facts derived from long-continued investigations and observations 
of the subject in the presence of materializing mediums: and it was with the 
object, in part, of learning from whom Dr. Brittan had derived the knowl- 
edge that warranted him in making his sweeping denunciations, that I 
asked him in the letter to which I have before referred to give the names, 
&c, of the materializing mediums in the presence of whom he had 
reached his unfavorable conclusions." 

Here I am boldly accused of having made "astounding- charges 
against scores of materializing mediums and thousands of investi- 
gators and believers," and of " making sweeping denunciations " 
of the same, when the truth is I have never done anything of the 
kind. Every word of this spiteful splurge was generated in the 
critic's own mind, and is evidence of splejiitis or of some dis- 
order of the brain. 

Mr. Hazard seems to lose sight of the fact that he is in the pres- 
ence of his peers (and is expected to demean himself accordingly), 
when he repeatedly intimates, in no ambiguous terms, that I have 
no knowledge of the higher phenomena, the only ground of his 
implied assumption being the fact that I can not be dragooned into 
leaving my appropriate business to write out a long history of my 
observations and experience for him to carp at.* It is true I was 
the first person in this country to give public lectures on Spiritual 
Phenomena and Mediumship ;. that I edited the first distinctively 
spiritual paper in the world (so far as appears from the evidence); 
and that from 1847 to the present hour I have been almost con- 
tinuously, in one way or another, employed as an investigator of 



* Mr. Hazard would have me neglect my obvious duty and utterly disregard my 
obligations to the public. He knows that I am under a positive engagement to write 
for the secular press in the interest of Spiritualism and liberal ideas. The unworthy 
and irrational attempts to strangle this important project at its birth having failed, 
he is now doing what he can, with such assistance as is offered, to divert the Editor- 
at-Large from his appointed work. 



404 APPENDIX A. 

the facts and a journalistic writer in the interest of Spiritualism. 
But all this signifies nothing in the estimation of the man who has 
the vanity to presume that his innuendo will disprove authentic 
history, and demonstrate the writer's utter ignorance of the higher 
manifestations. 

After several times charging me with " repeatedly and dogmati- 
cally " denouncing respectable citizens, and demanding that I should 
furnish the proofs of the " rascality, . . . folly and knavery" 
of honest and sensible people, he again — toward the close of his 
turgid manifesto — returns to the charge. The ebullition of bad 
feeling is not subdued or diminished by the previous unlimited free- 
dom of the same elements. The unquenchable fire still burns with 
the old intensity, and the eruption continues in the usual style, as 
will appear from an additional sample of the matter ejected. Here 
is the last specimen to be offered : 

"I again respectfully but determinedly demand of him, in the name of 
our scores of injured materializing mediums, and thousands of their ad- 
vocates and friends, whom Dr. B. has so grossly traduced, that he pro- 
ceed to publish in some form the ' demonstrative evidence ' he has ob- 
tained that warrants him in scattering abroad such wholesale accusations. " 

Here it is again alleged that I have " grossly traduced " and 
" injured scores of materializing mediums, and thousands of their 
advocates and friends." To show that all this splenetic stuff is ut- 
terly and forever at war with the facts in the case, I beg to repro- 
duce two brief passages from the very article which Mr. Hazard is 
reviewing. Here they are, verbatim, and a righteous public will 
judge whether or not I have "traduced," or otherwise "injured," 
any medium in the world : 

EXTRACT FROM OUR SPIRITUAL GUESTS. 

Let no one infer that I am disposed to question the genuineness 
of many phenomena which occur in connection with the cabinet. 
Spirits certainly have power to show themselves there as elsewhere ; 



APPENDIX A. 405 

but in resting the claims of Spiritualism on any class of facts, I 
deem it best to select examples which offer to the skeptical mind 
the least ground of objection. In respect to the cabinet manifesta- 
tions, it seems proper that each particular case should be examined 
and judged on its own intrinsic merits ; and if, in the end, there 
remains a question concerning the reality of the facts, it is only 
just to give the medium the benefit of the doubt 

The writer has no disposition to be hypercritical, or to indulge 
in unjust suspicions of persons when the evidence is inconclusive. 
It was Bacon who observed that "Suspicions among thoughts are like 
bats among birds, which ever fly by twilight." When more light 
is wanted, let us be generous and give the medium the benefit of 
every doubt. Whenever the phenomena are real (as no doubt thev 
are in many cases), and the forms are both visible and tangible at 
the same time, and alike to all observers, it must be evident that 
the Spirit is clothed with material vestments. 

Here is the demonstrative evidence that I was careful to con- 
scientiously respect the rights and to tenderly shield the reputation 
of every true medium. And yet how am I misrepresented ! This 
conduct is a loud protest indeed against the Golden Rule. There 
is a reason why I should not indulge in any comments here. The 
only terms which fitly characterize this conduct do not belong to 
the vocabulary employed in gentlemanly discussion, and I will use 
no other terms. But if this is not infidelity to truth, justice, and 
every principle of fraternal fellowship, pray what is it ? 

" His composure must be rare indeed, 
"Whom these things can not blemish." 

If I have, at any time, denounced a single genuine medium as a 
trickster, let the particular person be named ; if I have ever called 
any respectable citizen a knave, show us the man, and let the specific 
charges be rendered in my own words. I will not allow any one 



406 APPENDIX A. 

— except lunatics and outlaws — to attempt to cram me with his own 
impure English, malevolent passions and offensive epithets. I am 
not to be mistaken for a mere blunderbuss that may be charged to 
the muzzle with foul explosives and fired off into a crowd of re- 
spectable people for whom I have not one feeling of unkindness. 
I have denounced no honest man ; there is not one who can say I 
have called him a knave or otherwise treated him in an ungentle- 
manly manner. It I have, as occasion demanded, used censorious 
words, they have not had the remotest reference to any real medi- 
um or sincere believer in Spiritualism. My accuser knows, if he is 
not hopelessly blind and willfully ignorant, that I have been careful 
to limit the application of all such terms to persons guilty of 
false pretenses in claiming to exercise the gift of mediums hip, 
when they are only experimenting on human credulity from 
mercenary motives. In savagely assailing me for this, my reviewer 
comes — with whatever weight of character and influence he may 
possess — to make gross deception and fraud respectable, and to the 
defense of every hypocritical vagabond who thus steals 

" the livery of the court of heaven 

To serve the devil in." 

What any man can possibly gain — which a good man would wish 
to possess — by inspiring among mediums a feeling of resentment 
against one who has never injured them, I do not know. If we 
could be sure that he is fully responsible for this unworthy attempt 
to excite the prejudices of a large class of persons, whom the writer 
has often served by shielding them from public reprobation, we 
should be obliged to infer the existence of a malicious purpose. 
But we should not hastily accept this most unwelcome conclusion. 
We must, after all, judge Mr. Hazard dispassionately and in charity. 
It is perhaps rather to be inferred that his mind — from the influence 
of many painful experiences — has been led to dwell so long, and 



APPENDIX A. 407 

with such intensity, on one subject, that he has come to regard 
any man who may venture to express an honest opinion at variance 
with his own as a personal enemy, and a very Judas Iscariot to 
the cause. If he will direct the current of his thoughts into some 
other channel for a time, we may hope that he will recover from 
this mania. 

A review, however searching and severe, by a candid and com- 
petent critic, would be regarded as a compliment by any sensible 
man. It would certainly give us pleasure, and might afford in- 
struction. But there is nothing inspiring in the scenery and as- 
sociations of a mere chop-house. If one had a special aptitude for 
carving, we might consent to be subdivided within reasonable 
limits — never beyond the possible identification of our remains — 
but from purely aesthetic considerations we object to being ground 
up in a sausage-mill ! 

The article on Our Spiritual Guests was called for, and we freely 
gave it to the public. We did not therein assume to express the 
views of other people. ITo ; it was the legitimate offspring of our 
own mind. Will the reader pardon our vanity ? we thought it, on 
the whole, rather comely in shape and by no means offensive in 
spirit. But alas ! its original outlines and principal features are 
now fearfully broken and disfigured. In the mutilated remains 
which the cleaver has left and Mr. Hazard has scattered over so 
much unconsecrated ground, we can no more recognize the form 
and image of our child. No, never ! This seems like unnecessary 
cruelty. Instead of a fair creation, warmed by a living spirit and 
endowed with voice and expression, he gives us back only these 
poor relics. The iconoclast prefers only scattered fragments of 
things instead of their complete forms ; and so it suits his taste to 
demolish our household gods with an unsparing hand. De gusti- 
bus non est disputandum. 

If any one is inclined to think that this communication is unnec- 



408 APPENDIX A. 

essarily severe, I beg- to remind him that I have neither sought nor 
provoked a personal controversy with any man in the ranks of Spir- 
itualism, from first to last. From the beginning I have made it 
my business to battle with the common enemy. When of late I 
have occasionally been obliged to pause in this steady resistance 
of the outside opposition, it has been because 1 found it necessary 
to lift a shield over myself, and to parry the blows of pretended 
friends of our common cause. I never made the ?nost dista7it 
allusion to any one of my assailants until I was myself the sub- 
ject of a personal assault ; and not one among this little but noisy 
company of fault-finders — numbering altogether less than a baker's 
dozen — can assign any reason for his hostility that Reason would 
not blush to own. My acceptance of the office of Editor-at-Large 
was my offense. For more than thirty years no Spiritualist had 
publicly censured me, but thenceforth I was to be the target for 
dogmatic believers and unsatisfied aspirants for place and power. 

Human nature is capable of great endurance when the necessity 
exists. We chiefly shrink from the untiec.es sary ills of this present 
world. The evils which might be averted subject our patience to 
the severest trial. We could listen with a kind of satisfaction to a 
trip-hammer, so long as some utilitarian purpose justified the noise. 
But if one should carry round an old saw under his arm, and insist 
on filing it at all hours, merely for his own amusement and to rasp 
the nerves of the by-standers, we should exercise our privilege, 
and get out of his way. So we would shun the spirit that begets 
suspicion, bitterness and strife ; that fills the world with distrust, 
detraction and discord. The spirit that poisons the very springs 
of fraternal feeling and social life is no angel of light, but an ugly 
old hag whose nearest approach to the divine harmonies 

" is a perpetual jar." 

People who love " Peace and pursue it," get away — as far as 



APPENDIX A. 4O9 

possible without shunning the responsibilities of life — from all dog- 
matic babblers and common scolds. The reverent mind becomes 
sick of ceaseless and causeless strife. It is Burke who says : 

" Men have no right to what is not reasonable." 

Where is the reason or justification for this bitter warfare ? And 
what warrant has any man for attempting to hound even the hum- 
blest disciple of the Truth from the chosen field of any honorable 
and useful labor ? Surrounded by the elements of this unnecessary 
and profitless strife, the weary soul longs for the sweet solace of 
silence and solitude ; praying in spirit, as did the Hebrew min- 
strel, " Oh, that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away 
and be at rest." 

Here my part in this unwelcome controversy ends. Regretting 
the necessity which called for this communication, and trusting 
that your readers will pardon me for once occupying so much space 
in my own defense, I now take leave of Mr. Hazard with sincere 
wishes for his physical health and spiritual welfare. 

S. B. Brittan. 
Belvidere, Warren Co., N. J. 
Sept. 20, 1880. 



APPENDIX B. 



THE WESTERN SPIRITUAL PRESS. 

AT an early day the enterprise which proposed to employ the 
Secular Press in the elucidation and defense of Spiritualism, 
met with most determined opposition ; not, however, from the 
avowed enemies of the truth, as might have been expected ; but — 
strange as the fact may seem — from a certain class of professed 
friends ! The principal facts in the case seem to be essential ele- 
ments in the true history of the work of the Secular Press Bureau. 
The truth can not be dishonored, nor can any man be wronged by a 
candid and dispassionate record of the simple truth in this matter. 
We have no valuable time to waste in personal disputations, and 
we have no taste for such occupation. As far as possible — in every 
controversy — we desire to deal with principles, not men, and will 
not go beyond our self-imposed limit in the freedom of discussion. 
My readers will remember that conspicuous among the phases of 
the opposition to the Editor-at-Large and the method adopted by 
the Secular Press Bureau, was the unfriendly attitude of the Religio- 
Philosophical Journal. Even while the preliminary arrangements 
were in progress, and before the public had witnessed the actual 
inauguration of the work, the following appeared as an editorial 
leader in the Journal of the date of December 20, 1879 : 

THE " EDITOR- AT-LARGE " SCHEME. 

There was inaugurated several months since through the columns of our 
esteemed Boston contemporary, a scheme to raise a fund wherewith to 



APPENDIX B. 411 

retain Prof. S. B. Brittan to defend Spiritualism through the columns 
of the scientific, religious and secular journals of this country. The 
plan does not appear to have been received with much enthusiasm, for 
after obtaining the strongest editorial indorsement from our contempo- 
rary in successive issues, the fund has now only reached $260, and of this 
amount the sum of $200 is given by three contributors. We have lately 
been solicited by one who thinks favorably of the attempt to " say some 
earnest words for this enterprise " in the Journal. We had hoped to 
escape the necessity of defining our position on this matter; and owing 
to a sincere friendship for Prof. Brittan, it is with profound regret we 
feel obliged, after mature deliberation, to wholly dissent to the proposed 
scheme and for the following among other reasons : 

1. There does not appear to have been any agreement entered into on 
the part of a single scientific, religious or secular journal to publish articles 
which Prof. Brittan may offer; and furthermore, there is no probability 
that any such agreement can be made. It is a notorious fact that on 
many occasions when* Spiritualism has been most grossly maligned and 
misrepresented in the columns of scientific magazines and leading secu- 
lar papers, some of our ablest writers have without price proffered re- 
plies and been refused space, and this, too, when by every principle of 
right and justice the adherents of Spiritualism were entitled to a hearing. 

2. Leading periodicals and secular papers are governed wholly by the 
demand; they cater to the general public or to special classes, and are 
quick to note what their readers want, and are able and ready to buy at 
fair prices such matter as is required. The mere fact that an article can 
be had free of cost is, of itself, no inducement to influential papers to 
give it space. That they do not buy articles on Spiritualism, is an evi- 
dence that their customers do not demand that commodity. Horace 
Greeley once remarked to an enthusiastic and able editorial writer who 
desired to illustrate certain truths in a series of editorials, and who de- 
fended his plan on the ground that the articles would tend to enlighten 
and benefit the people: "I am not offering goods that won't sell, it 
is not alone a question of merit ; the main question is, Are they salable ?" 
That answer settled the publication of the editorials and the young man too. 

3. Having raised a sufficient fund (how much ?) to retain Prof. Brittan 
for the " defense," it will then become necessary to raise another fund 
large enough to pay from fifty cents to one dollar per line for the space 
used in such leading periodicals and papers as will be of any service to 
Spiritualism; thus the quixotic, chimerical aspect of the enterprise is at 
once apparent. 



412 APPENDIX B. 

4. Supposing a sufficient fund were raised and the publishers of the 
leading scientific, religious and secular papers were to generously unite in 
establishing the office of Spiritualist Superintendency of Editors* (for that 
is what the proposed plan amounts to), and were to throw open the 
columns of their respective publications to Dr. Brittan, what would be 
the immediate result ? How long would it be before the accommodating 
editors of such papers would have a hornet's nest about their ears in the 
shape of articles from other Spiritualists, dissenting vigorously from one 
or more of Dr. Brittan's statements and declaring that what they respect- 
ively offered was the real bona fide thing, and that Spiritualism would 
suffer in the eyes of the world unless at once set right ? 

This is no overdrawn picture of the probabilities, and brings us back 
to the realization that after all, the Spiritualist press must be relied on to 
promulgate and expound the truths of Spiritualism ; and it will do the 
work in due time and in its own way. In the various Spiritualist papers 
there is room for all the learning, talent, culture and inspiration to be 
found in the ranks of Spiritualism. Let Spiritualists support their own 
papers with that alacrity and zeal which duty to mankind demands, and 
the Spiritualist press will then be able to pay liberally such able men as 
Prof. Brittan and hundreds of others for their labor, and will assume a 
place in the current literature of the age second in power and influence 
to none. 

We are always highly interested in whatever Prof. Brittan writes, and 
agree therewith in the main ; we should be most happy to have a way 
open so that he could devote his whole time to writing for the Spiritualist 
press. He is now a regular contributor for the Banner of Light, and if 
that paper will throw its columns open to him without placing any restric- 
tions on what he shall write about, and he will freely and frankly give 
his views on the various important questions of vital interest constantly 
arising in our ranks, we will not object to the raising of a permanent fund 
to pay him for his services, and we will subscribe to the same $50.00, 
which is the amount Messrs. Colby & Rich give to the " Editor-at-Large " 
enterprise. This offer we make as a sort of compromise, and do not 
thereby mean to be understood as favoring the " Editor-at-Large " scheme,, 
however modified; for at best the plan will be looked upon by the gen- 
eral Spiritualist public as but another eleemosynary device. And the de- 
mand will be made, that the scope of the work be sufficiently enlarged to 



* No superintendency of the spiritual journalism of the country was ever dreamed 
of by any one interested in the Bureau. Not even the remotest suggestion of the 
kind emanated from any one except those whose aim was to defeat the enterprise. 



APPENDIX B. 413 

bring within its field dozens of men and women, who as mediums and 
lecturers, have unselfishly labored in the cause from ten to thirty years, 
and who now in their declining days find themselves in poverty, unable to 
alleviate their most pressing wants. 

The reader will have observed that in the foregoing article it is 
confidently assumed that it would be quite impossible to obtain 
space for the proposed Secular Press Correspondence without pay- 
ing for it at the regular advertising rates — " from fifty cents to one 
dollar per line " — as therein specified. This appears to have been 
the chief ground of objection at the date of the Editor's first mis- 
sive. Referring to the question of the possible chances of our ob- 
taining access to the columns of important journals he uses this 
language : — " There is no probability that any such agreement can 
be made." And yet, according to the estimate of Mr. Charles D. 
Lakey, Editor and proprietor of the American Builder, the Edi- 
tor-at-Large — during the first year of his service — actually oc- 
cupied the space of 15,000 lines in illustration and defense of 
Spiritualism, for which not a single dime was ever paid. 

FROM THE RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, JANUARY IO, 1880. 

' ' THE * EDITOR-AT-LARGE ' SCHEME AGAIN. 

"We exceedingly regret that the reasons we gave for not advocating 
Prof. Brittan's editor-at-large scheme, should seem to bring us in antag- 
onism with that worthy gentleman. We endeavored to be as considerate 
as possible, and we think our readers will say that our bill of exceptions, 
taken as a whole, is good and capable of being in the main sustained, 
and yet that it is kindly and appreciative toward Dr. Brittan. In the 
last issue of the Banner of Light, Dr. Brittan has an article over his own 
name on the subject, in which, after stating that he has in the past had 
articles published in the Tribune and Times of New York, etc., he adds : " 

[As the Journals method of dismembering our paragraphs is 
not at all suited to our taste, we may here do ourself justice by the 
insertion of a more extended extract than that paper was pleased 
to give to its readers.] 



v. 



414 APPENDIX B. 

As I am writing this for the information of Spiritualists who are 
presumed to be well informed, it is hardly necessary to remind 
them that, for many years, the present writer has been a frequent 
contributor to the columns of the secular press, and that his own 
articles in defense of Spiritualism have reached hundreds of thou- 
sands of readers through the New York Herald, Tribune, and 
other widely circulated papers. Some of these contributions have 
been direct replies to the most virulent assaults of our enemies ; 
and it gives me pleasure to record the fact — as an evidence of hon- 
orable improvement in the character of American journalism — that 
they have been conspicuously published, under displayed lines, and 
without a single word of editorial detraction or qualification. In 
view of these facts it will be perceived that the mere speculators in 
the chances of our obtaining such recognition, and the captious 
critics who imagine it will be necessary to raise a separate fund to 
pay for the insertion of such contributions as advertisements, have 
a no more substantial foundation for their opinions than the idle 
vagaries of the unwilling mind, and a manifest lack of knowledge 
of what has already been accomplished. 

Articles forwarded to the press from the Editor-at-Large Bureau, 
if finally declined, will probably be published in the Banner of 
Light, together with such reasons as may be assigned for their re- 
jection. The results of this experiment will enable us to deter- 
mine who among our secular, scientific and religious journalists 
believe in justice, and do not fear the result when truth and error 
meet in an open field. We shall also be able to give all merited 
distinction to those who insist on nothing but ex-parte testimony, 
and the discussion of only one side of this great question of the 
ages. S. B. B. 

"We deplore the effect that our well-intentioned article seems to have 
produced on our most excellent brother. We submit that it is mere 
speculation as to whether leading papers will publish his articles, hence 



APPENDIX B. 415 

the covert sarcasm in the phrase ' mere speculators ' grieves us. Again, 
we appeal to the spiritualistic public to know, if our article warranted 
Prof. Brittan's use of the term ' captious critics ? ' True, he has so 
worded his letter that the readers of the Banner who do not see the 
Journal will not know that he refers to us, yet it is apparent what he 
means, though it is discreet not to let the mass of his readers know from 
whence the objections to his scheme come — when we speak of the scheme 
as one of Dr. Brittan's own conception we speak advisedly and from per- 
sonal knowledge. Furthermore, we did not speak from ' lack of knowl- 
edge of what has already been accomplished,' but, on the contrary, with 
a full knowledge thereof. 

The kernel of this nut is laid bare in the second paragraph quoted from 
Dr. Brittan. So after all Brother Brittan is to be paid by the general 
public for writing articles which ' will probably be published in the Ban- 
ner of Light.' That is good! Very good ! The probability is so near a 
certainty that it is safe to say a very large proportion of the articles will 
certainly be published in the Banner.* 

To this we have no objection; what we do object to is the attempt to 
foist an eleemosynary scheme upon the public in this way; and, too, there 
are very grave doubts as to whether some of the subscriptions as pub- 
lished are bona fide. We do not say they are not; far be it from us to 
make such a grave and damning assertion, but we simply state a fact 
when we say there is a wide-spread doubt on the subject. 

We are authorized to and do hereby offer to the editor of the Banner of 
Light, $25 toward the fund if he will produce the evidence on demand of 
our attorney, which shall prove that the purported donation of $500 was 
bona fide. It is not essential that the name of the donor be made pub- 
lic. If the proposition is accepted we will name our attorney, place the 
money in his hands, and on receipt of his report will publish the same, 
and thus either allay or confirm the suspicions now held by many, includ- 
ing representative people who are perfectly friendly toward both Dr. 
Brittan and our Boston contemporary." 

In the first of the two preceding articles the editor of the Journal 
incidentally refers to an "eleemosynary device," and in the second, 
having become assured that his ungracious suspicion was well- 



* Time has verified the truth of this prophecy, but it remains to be stated that they 
mainly appeared in the Banner after they had been widely published in influential 
secular journals, which fact it suits the policy of the Journal to suppress. 



4l6 APPENDIX B. 

founded, he boldly assumes, as a matter of fact, "the attempt to 
foist an eleemosynary scheme upon the public in this way." Let 
us briefly analyze his language. To foist is to introduce without 
authority, and surreptitiously, fraudulently, or by the practice of 
some deception. Eleemosyjiary is a term that has a special rela- 
tion to charity or alms-giving. It is also applied to persons who 
are dependent, or can only subsist at the expense of others. A 
pauper is an eleemosynary individual. A scheme is a particular 
plan or practical method by which some purpose, object or end is 
to be accomplished. 

Now if the Editor of the Journal really comprehended the sig- 
nificance of the terms he employed — and we suppose he did — he 
must have intended to say, in substance at least, that the Editor- at- 
Large, Luther Colby, Isaac B. Rich and other prominent friends 
of the Secular Press Bureau, were engaged in an attempt, by 
fraudulent representations, to force the present writer upon an 
unwilling public as an object of charity. By what authority did he 
assume that the friends and promoters of this enterprise were all 
enlisted in a conspiracy to mislead and defraud the public, and 
why was the present writer thus unceremoniously dragooned be- 
fore his readers as a miserable and unworthy dependent on public 
charity ? He takes me for a medicant ; but I have never asked alms 
at the hands of any person on earth. The man who may — at least 
for the present, and so long as health and the exercise of his facul- 
ties remain — obtain, by honest labor, a respectable subsistence in 
any one of a half dozen different ways, is by no means reduced to the 
dire necessity which the JournaVs language most distinctly implies. 
If other parties choose to employ such a man in any capacity, and 
he— finding the proposed work congenial to his taste and the habit 
of his life — elects to perform skilled labor for the small wages of an 
ordinary mechanic, he can scarcely be regarded as less honorably 
self-supporting on that account. Why, then, did the editor of the 



APPENDIX B. 417 

Journal employ such language in referring to the present writer 
if not to dishonor him before the public? What motive inspired 
the cool affront thus offered to the several gentlemen and ladies 
associated with him in the same work, if it was not a disposition to 
degrade them in the estimation of his readers ? 

It can not have escaped the observation of the reader that the 
proprietor of the Journal fills his whole paper, from week to week, 
with matter ostensibly prepared and published in the interest of 
Spiritualism. But he does not give his paper awayj nor does he 
propose to work for nothing and Jind himself. It is fair to pre- 
sume that he depends on the subscriptions of his four thousand 
patrons to defray the necessary expenses in the prosecution of this 
journalistic work. He has also been accustomed to depend on 
several writers for free contributions to his columns. But seeing 
this dependence upon others for the support of his enterprise — 
through all its history — no one has yet been so ungracious as to 
even suggest that the publication of his paper is an " attempt to 
foist an eleemosynary scheme upon the public." 

In the concluding portion of the Journal's article of January io, 
1880, it is distinctly intimated that the subscription of $500 by one 
man to the Editor-at-Large fund was not dona fide. To be sure, 
this involved the inference that several honorable gentlemen were 
guilty of false pretenses, and were wickedly conspiring to defraud 
the public. But the sower who went forth to scatter the seeds of 
suspicion and discord in many minds and hearts, did not hesitate 
to act on his own conclusion. On this point he was so confident 
as to offer twenty-five dollars, to be paid into the treasury of the 
fund, on the one single condition that the Editor of the Banner of 
Light would first prove to the Journal's attorney that the $500 
was really subscribed in good faith and actually paid. The further 
pledge was given that the facts developed by the investigation 
would be published in the Western organ of Spiritualism. This 



41 8 APPENDIX B. 

offer was promptly accepted ; the attorney presented himself in due 
time and pursued his inquiries at headquarters; the facts relating 
to the subscription and payment of the money were all proved, by 
evidence that would be accepted as decisive in any court for the 
trial of civil causes in this country. But no public report was ever 
made of the result ; to the best of our knowledge and belief the 
Western spiritual paper did not publish the facts elicited by its 
chosen attorney ; and we have authority for adding that the Jour- 
nal's subscription to the Editor-at-Large fund remains unpaid. 

TAKING UP A NEW POSITION. 

It soon became evident that the Secular Press Correspondence of 
the Editor-at-Large was finding its way into the best papers in city 
and country, and the good results were also beginning to be appar- 
ent. The original ground occupied by the spiritualistic opposition 
was powerfully shaken ; it threatened to cave in or otherwise slip 
from beneath the feet of the besieging forces. One may possibly 
exhibit something like strategy, even when he goes forth to en- 
gage alone in a war of words. A sudden change of base became 
a necessity, and this was happily accomplished by a most skillful 
manceuver, the Colonel commanding. We find the following 
"order of the day" in the Religio-Philosophical Journal of 
January 31, 1880: 

to spiritualists! 

"You will all readily admit the need of an organized and sustained ag- 
gressive policy on the part of Spiritualists in dealing with the world of 
opposition and ignorance with which we have to contend in advancing a 
knowledge of Spiritual Truth. The desirability of meeting misstate- 
ments, ignorant criticisms and unjust attacks through the same channels 
in which they are given to the public, is patent to all and needs no argu- 
ment. To overcome the obstacles in the way and secure this desirable 
object is to some extent possible now, provided united and persistent 



APPENDIX B. 4ig 

effort is made, and the sooner we begin and the longer we persist in such 
united and aggressive action, the easier will become the task. 

While there is a general agreement as to the advisability of such action, 
there arise differences as to the best method of initiating and carrying on 
the work. There appear grave objections and dangers, in the minds of 
many, to clothing any single individual with authority to represent the 
millions of Spiritualists, and the certainty of division on this point will 
tend to seriously affect the desired object.* 

Further, the difficulty of raising a fund from year to year sufficient to 
pay an adequate salary for such purpose is broached, and with great force, 
we admit, in view of the unorganized condition of Spiritualists and the 
comparatively limited support given even to spiritual publications and 
lecturers. It seems to us that these difficulties, and others nearly as 
serious, can be overcome, in a great measure, and the work rendered 
feasible, by dividing the duties and responsibilities of the work among a 
goodly number, who shall perform it without pecuniary consideration. 
We are all co-workers, brothers and sisters in this glorious labor of love, 
and it matters not who does any particular task, so that it is well and 
promptly done. 

Therefore we, the undersigned, pledge ourselves to gratuitously do this 
work ; and ask each and every Spiritualist, respectively, to write their 
names as members of our corps of advisers and helpers. Let all keep 
watch and guard, and whenever one sees occasion for action, let him 
either devote himself to the task, or refer it, with the proper data, to the 
one on this list whom he thinks best qualified for that particular case or 
the special work in view. 

The time demands our united action, and, united in a common cause, 
we will zealously and persistently work together for the achievement of a 
common purpose. 

J. M. Peebles, Hammonton, N. J. 
Hudson Tuttle, Berlin Heights, Ohio. 
Samuel Watson, Memphis, Tenn. 
SAMUEL Bigelow, Alliance, Ohio. 

D. P Kayner, Chicago, 111. 

E. S. Holbrook, Chicago, 111. 



* The Editor-at-Large no more claimed " authority to represent the millions of 
Spiritualists" than does the Editor of the Journal, who fills his whole paper with 
his views and those of his correspondents, on the same general subject. The Jour- 
naPs man of straw has leave to retire from our presence. 



420 APPENDIX B. 

Mrs. Mary Wilson, Lombard, 111. 

E. W. Bond, Willoughby, Ohio. 

J. Murray Case, Columbus, Ohio. 

Lyman C. Howe, Fredonia, N. Y. 

A. B. Spinney, Detroit, Mich. 

Bronson Murray, New York City. 

Mrs. Emma Tuttle, Berlin Heights, Ohio. 

J. G. Jackson, Hockessin, Del. 

Giles B. Stebbins, Washington, D. C. 

E. V. Wilson, Lombard, 111. 

A. B. French, Clyde, Ohio. 

H. H. Brown, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Mrs. Maria M. King, Hammonton, N. J. 

Wm. E. Coleman, Fort Sill, I. T. 

Wm. Fishbough, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

C. Fanny Allyn, Stoneham, Mass. 

John A. Hoover, Philadelphia, Pa." 

In this Manifesto the importance of the work we had undertaken 
to perform is freely admitted, and the necessity for the prosecution 
of the same is urged upon the public as highly important. It is 
also acknowledged that if " the obstacles in the way" had not yet 
been "overcome," they might be by proper effort, and the friends 
of Spiritualism are exhorted to "persist in such united and aggres- 
sive action." Only one essential modification of the plan seems to 
have been thought necessary at that time to secure for the move- 
ment a certain and grand success. The new feature to be intro- 
duced was to abolish the fund, and thus not only conserve the 
priceless virtue of economy among our people, but, at the same 
time, furnish many conspicuous and memorable examples of disin- 
terested devotion and cheerful self-sacrifice in the cause of truth. 

To illustrate the reprehensible prodigality of the subscribers to 
the fund, and to convince others that there was no sense in this 
useless waste of money, the names and residences of twenty-three 
Editors-at-Large were furnished, all of whom are represented as 
volunteering to perform the same or similar labors without any 



APPENDIX B. 421 

material recompense for their services. There are some excellent 
names in this list ; minds whose ability we are pleased to recog- 
nize, more especially since they are credited with disinterested 
labors in the past. One of the most distinguished among them 
called on the writer, only a few days after the article addressed 
To Spiritualists appeared, and apologized for the presence of 
his name in that connection. He declared that he had been de- 
ceived j that he had been asked to merely allow his name to be 
used in connection with an article on missionary labor j and that 
not even the most distant intimation was given him that the pro- 
posed article would make any reference whatever to the Editor-at- 
Large work. Such were the representations — as stated by the 
gentleman himself — that induced him to consent to the use of his 
name. This is suggestive of what may have been the facts in some 
other cases, but comment is unnecessary. 

Of course the Journal's final appeal produced the effect the 
author intended on the minds of Western Spiritualists who read 
that paper. They did not generally subscribe to the Secular Press 
Bureau fund. It may have seemed a little singular to the uniniti- 
ated that the twenty-three did not immediately rush to the field 
and engage in the service to which they had been assigned. We 
are not informed that any one of the volunteer (?) Editors-at-Large 
made any particular move in that direction. If they acted at all, it 
must have been with so much reserve and secrecy that their move- 
ments did not arrest public attention. But we are not authorized 
to arraign any one for a neglect of duty on this account. If the 
volunteer editorial corps, recruited by Colonel Bundy, did not do 
anything to speak of, and at the same time no one expressed sur- 
prise, it was probably for the reason that no one ever expected 
them to enter the service as proposed. 



422 APPENDIX B. 

PLACED IN A FALSE POSITION. 

Soon after the publication of the paper on Our Spiritual Guests, 
a lengthy editorial leader appeared in the Religio-Philosophical 
Journal, purporting to be a review of the same. It was respectful 
in terms, and otherwise calculated to leave the impression on the 
mind of the reader that the purpose of the writer was friendly, and 
the spirit which inspired it altogether catholic. But this appar- 
ently friendly review totally misrepresented our position on the 
question of Materialization. It left the reader to infer that we at- 
tributed all the pheno7nena ordinarily embraced under this head 
to the magnetic influence and psychological action of Spirits, ex- 
erted through the sensory nerves upon the human mind in the 
body. We had carefully analyzed and classified the facts, com- 
monly described as "the materialization of spirits," dividing them 
into four separate classes, each of which was clearly defined. Only 
one of the four classes was attributed to the psychological powers 
of the Spirits and their influence over the senses and the minds of 
mortals.* 

Now it seemed to be eminently proper to correct this misrepre- 
sentation, that we might not be placed in a false position before 
the readers of the Journal, and we took the least offensive way of 
making this correction. Having no inclination to encourage per- 
sonal and acrimonious disputations, already too prevalent among 
professed Spiritualists, we waived our moral right to openly con- 
trovert the statements and representations of the editor in his own 
columns. In a few lines, couched in civil and polite terms, we 
called his attention to the subject. To such a brief reference — as 
an introduction — we attached a printed slip containing the four 
paragraphs embracing our complete classification, requesting, as 



* The four paragraphs here referred to as embracing our complete classification 
may be found on pages 357 — 361 of this volume. 



APPENDIX B. 423 

an act of simple justice to ourself, that the same might be copied 
into the Journal. Our petition was neither granted nor otherwise 
recognized, and no attention was ever given to our very reasonable 
request. 

The articles which we have reproduced entire, and in which the 
present writer is represented as engaged with his friends in "an 
eleemosynary scheme " to " foist" himself upon Spiritualists as an 
unworthy pensioner upon their bounty, are otherwise almost profuse 
in expressions of personal respect and friendship for the writer. 
In the last one — we mean the "indorsed paper" — the great im- 
portance of the Secular Press Bureau work, and its feasibility, by 
the adoption of the method therein proposed, is acknowledged. 
The reader will scarcely fail to observe, however, that the personal 
friendship for the Editor-at-Large, and the real measure of interest 
in the work, find only mute illustration in our Western Spiritual 
journalism. It is true that the Banner did reproduce most of the 
articles originally published by the secular press ; also that impor- 
tant portions of the Bureau Correspondence were republished in 
foreign countries and highly commended ; but the earnest and 
faithful labor of two years never elicited so much as one line of ap- 
proval in the columns of the Journal. 

Among the correspondents who have made the Journal the ve- 
hicle of offensive personalities and covert attempts to defeat the 
work of the Editor-at-Large, is one who, in his former extreme 
poverty, had unlimited freedom at our table, and came, with or 
without invitation, at all times, until by the death of a relative he 
suddenly became wealthy, since which auspicious event his shadow 
has never fallen on our humble threshold. There are several 
others — obsessed individuals or perhaps otherwise rendered irre- 
sponsible, whom we can not compliment by a special notice in this 
connection, inasmuch as this would be little short of giving gravity 
to smoke, or undue importance to trifles. 



APPENDIX C. 



PLEADING TO THE INDICTMENT. 

FROM THE RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, MAY 29, 1880. 

IN the Journal of April 24th, I find a letter from Mr. A. J. 
Davis, containing a paragraph which has proved to be of a 
somewhat sensational character as may be inferred from the com- 
ments it has already elicited. My reference is to the following 
passage : 

"Leading minds in Spiritualism in New York and elsewhere seem 
deeply impressed that it is time to give ' form ' to that which for so long 
has been ' void.' Who these leading gentlemen are, has not fully come 
to my knowledge. But I learn, definitely, that Prof. S. B. Brittan, Prof. 
Kiddle, Prof. Buchanan, Judge Cross, Charles Partridge, Henry J. New- 
ton, and others, moved by kindred convictions, have been and are now at 
work perfecting a 'Constitution, By-Laws,' etc., which may possibly 
serve to bring order out of chaos. You remember that, some two years 
ago, I called attention in your columns to the desirableness of an organ- 
ization, with more than one phase, over each form of which a certain 
named well-qualified gentleman might with great propriety be called upon 
to preside. For I doubt, when they once begin to organize, whether one 
common name and one rationalistic purpose will satisfy the large majority 
of non-progressives which begin to enter under the wings of Christian 
Spiritualism. The drift of all thoughtful Spiritualists — especially the 
influential leaders before mentioned — is undisguisedly toward existing 
sentimental Christianism. How all this is to subserve the greater spirit- 
ualization and liberalization of mankind, is more than I can comprehend. 
You will, therefore, now and always find me 'outside ' of the party lines." 

That the persons above named, and others, have been discussing 
424 



APPENDIX C 425 

the subject of organization, and that they have actually framed a 
Constitution and By-Laws— which may or may not become the 
organic law of a de facto Association — is substantially true. That 
there is anything particularly •" sentimental " in this movement — 
anything of a romantic nature, or involving — as the term may be 
understood to imply — an excessive exercise, or morbid develop- 
ment of the sensibilities of human nature, is nowhere else apparent 
save in the foregoing paragraph. In reaching his conclusions our 
friend rests on the testimony of some one who is not introduced to 
the reader. It is well ; the witness may preserve his i?icognito. 
Let us be gracious and waive the cross-examination, while we 
learn from experience that scientific philosophers and apostles of 
Nature, as well as other people, may profitably scrutinize the 
sources of their information. 

The assumption that the movement proves and illustrates the 
fact that "The drift of all thoughtful Spiritualists — especially the 
influential leaders before mentioned — is undisguisedly toward ex- 
isting sentimental Christianism," will derive no possible support 
from a critical examination of the facts. We never for a moment 
suspected that any one, even with the duplex lens of microscopic 
clairvoyance, aided by the double reflectors of a lively imagination, 
would ever discover a vestige of " Christianism " in the work of 
the organizers. Christ is neither named nor remotely referred to 
in their Constitution. Let no hysterical brother be alarmed because 
the new Society has one Cross. To allay all unnecessary appre- 
hension we are ready to affirm that he has nothing whatever to do 
with the atonement, and that no one is expected to be crucified ! 

In all that has been put on paper by the Committee on Organiza- 
tion there is not so much as a most distant allusion to the Church; 
to the necessity for its continued existence, or for the observance of 
any religious rite or ceremony. No one is required to accept the 
peculiar views and dogmatic opinions of another. Not even by 



426 APPENDIX C. 

implication does the proposed Constitution limit the freedom of the 
individual, nor in any way interfere with either his faith, philosophy 
or worship. It offers no thirty-nine articles, nor any other num- 
ber, expressive of the religious convictions of its members. It will, 
therefore, be found to tolerate a larger liberty than is enjoyed 
within the Episcopal jurisdiction, of which an irreverent member 
once said he preferred it to any other Church because it never med- 
dled with either politics or religion ! 

But the sources of consolation, to be derived from the freedom 
of the Constitution of the new Society, are not yet exhausted. The 
candidate for admission to membership may be Pagan, Jew, Chris- 
tian, or Mussulman. He may have one thousand gods or not even 
one, as may be determined by the inclination of his mind. His 
theology may embrace seven heavens or seventy thousand ; all the 
hells of Dante, Milton and Swedenborg, or none at all beyond the 
present life. Moreover, he may believe in Mr. Kersey Graves' 
" Sixteen Crucified Saviors," multiplied by as many more as he may 
be able to find in history or evolve from his own brains. Who- 
ever wants a larger liberty than this will not be expected to join 
the Association. It would be a pity to have any soul of great 
latent powers and lofty aims cramped and belittled to all eternity 
for lack of space in which to exercise and grow up to the heavenly- 
standard of his possibilities. Genius must have room for the proper 
inflation of its ideas if we unroof the world. At the same time it 
must be confessed, that arbitrary restraints are often inspiring to 
those who have the power of adequate resistance. Trumbull ob- 
served this fact and put the idea thus in two lines of his McFingal : 

" For genius swells more strong and clear 
When close confined — like bottled beer." 

Let us be serious when we may. The qualifications for member- 
ship in the new organization, which are really required, may be 



APPENDIX C. 427 

thus briefly expressed : An honest purpose in seeking admission 
a?id fellowship j habits of life and a ge7ieral deportment which 
command respect j and a sincere desire to obtain the truth and 
promote the welfare of ma?ikind. 

We have some unhappy people among us for whom we are suit- 
ably sorry. The mention of the religious idea in their hearing in- 
spires a kind of frenzy or delirium. I scarcely need remind the 
reader that the Harmonial Philosopher is not one of this class. He 
believes in the "beautiful religion of Nature," and he is too cool to 
ever become delirious. Nevertheless, there are several poor vic- 
tims of the mania that oppose all religion. It may soothe these 
and relieve other monomaniacs — people tormented by morbid ap- 
prehensions of the loss of their own precious independence — to be 
assured that the prima facie evidence is that the organizers are all 
Atheists, inasmuch as they have no God in their Constitution. 
Now we solemnly affirm this to be the fact in respect to the organic 
law of the new Association. Is not this enough to bring peace to 
troubled souls ; to allay the nervous irritability of venerable ladies 
of both sexes, and to insure the safety of our institutions ? We 
think it is all that can be required, and we here offer the Poet's 
benediction : 

"Rest, rest, perturbed spirits." 

The paragraph I have had occasion to review, regarded as a 
criticism, is certainly very mild in terms and gentle enough in 
spirit. If it has appeared to be of mischievous tendency, it is not 
from the purpose of the writer, but rather from the use which has 
already been made of it by others. I am not disposed to attribute 
any unfriendly intention to Bro. Davis. But the truth is, his words 
are taken as a text by acrimonious critics ; by brawling scolds, 
whose disease has become chronic ; and. it may be, by fierce 
demoniacs. We are rudely assailed as enemies of religious liberty. 



428 APPENDIX C. 

guilty of a studied attempt to demoralize Spiritualism by founding 
a new sect in theology and religion — the very thing the writer 
has been contending against for forty years. Some of these bel- 
igerents threaten us with perpetual war. They are determined 
to give us no peace unless we seek it by personal humiliation and 
repentance, or purchase the same at the cost of our honest con- 
victions. What these malignants virtually demand is submission 
to their authority. We shall probably remain impenitent. We 
can not accept the guidance of these valiant knights whose chief 
occupation is battling with wind-mills, and wrestling fearfully with 
the phantoms evolved from their own disordered brains. 

Some people seem delighted when they can find " a bone to 
pick;" it enables them to show their teeth. If we have furnished 
one for the time, let those gnaw the same who like the occupation. 
This bone is probably larger than some; at the same time it may 
be as lean and not more nutritious than that imaginary bone for 
which — on a memorable occasion — 

"Old mother Hubbard 
Went to the cupboard." 

Yet on such food do envious busybodies, and mischievous med- 
dlers with other people's affairs, contrive to subsist. It is not 
strange that they grow lean in spirit and wolfish in disposition. 
The pit opens in the path of all spiteful souls, and images with 
glaring eyes and gory locks haunt the presence of the man who 
"hateth his brother." There are men of perverted minds, whose 
hearts are full of bitterness ; men of base feeling, vulgar manners, 
rude speech and malicious purposes, who sow discord and stir up 
strife. A Christian Apostle refers to them when he says, u Their 
throat is an open sepulcher ; with their tongues they have used de- 
ceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips ; whose mouth is full of 
cursing and bitterness.'' (Rom. iii : 13, 14.) Such men are not 



APPENDIX C. 429 

only regardless of the social amenities and moral obligations of 
life, but they are disturbers of the peace of society. A man may 
be a saint and be stung by a scorpion. Even a gadfly may pester 
a lion ; while, out of the faithless bosom, a serpent may lift his 
venomous head and strike, — 

" At everything that glistens fair and white." 

While the divine realities of all the past are reproduced in our 
time, it is no less true that the unclean phases and distorted feat- 
ures of the world's moral history and spiritual experience, are being 
repeated in our presence. The gates of heaven stand ajar while 
hell yawns at our feet. There is a realm of the infernal that in- 
terpenetrates our sphere and especially belongs to this world of 
conflicting interests and selfish passions. Cerberus keeps his ken- 
nel and barks at every well-behaved traveler. He stretches himself 
at length before the gates of the Limbics Fatuorum and demands 
his bone in the shape of everlasting contention. The disorderly 
forces of the world are ever recruited from beneath. Uprising 
from the pit — ghastly and terrible, begrimed with smoke from in- 
fernal fires — they come ! 

"Contention bold, with iron lungs, 
And Slander with her hundred tongues." 

Well, let Cerberus the dog growl, and bark, and gnaw the same 
old bone of contention ; for such, in sooth, is the constitution of 
the creature and the manner of his life. 

" Evil subsists in ceaseless strife and hate ; 

This is its final fate : 
Left to itself it shall at last expire 
Like fire that meeteth fire." 

S. B. Brittan. 
New York, May 14, 1880. 



430 APPENDIX C. 



THE GRAND ARMY OF STRAW! 

MY ANSWER TO HUDSON TUTTLE. 

" If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a 
reason upon compulsion." 

IN his article on "Christian Spiritualism," in the Journal of 
the fifteenth instant, Mr. Hudson Tuttle is pleased to interro- 
gate me (other names are included) as to what I " desire to convey- 
by the term Christian Spiritualism." As it is not considered re- 
spectful to remain silent when one is directly questioned, I cheer- 
fully answer in such manner and form as the facts and circum- 
stances seem to require. I have sometimes had occasion to speak 
of Rational Spiritualism j but as I have never prefixed the word 
Christian, nor any other — except the one mentioned — for the pur- 
pose of qualifying- my Spiritualism, it will be perceived that the 
inquiry — so far as the writer is personally concerned — is wholly 
impertinent. Brother Tuttle is at liberty to set up this man of 
straw, for a scarecrow out West, and he has our permission to 
train the whole army in his own way. Such effigies are not pre- 
sumed to have any feeling, and so the aforesaid man may be 
knocked down at any time, and as often as the proprietor may find 
the occupation either a pleasant pastime or healthful exercise. 

A few passages from Brother Tuttle's article will suffice to illus- 
trate the haughty and dictatorial spirit of a writer in whom a mod- 
est confidence would be more becoming. He makes no effort to 
restrain the expression of his contempt for gentlemen who, to say 
the least, are not his inferiors, either in intellectual ability, social 
position, moral integrity, or public influence. The following brief 
extracts will be quite sufficient for my purpose: 

" It is a pitable spectacle to see men stand before the public and deny 



APPENDIX C. 431 

like school-boys. . . . After all these Christian Spiritualists [he 
only names Prof. Buchanan, Prof. Kiddle, Dr. Peebles, and S. B. Brit- 
tan] are no more Christians than those who reject the term 

They only desire to retain the name as a sham, and it is a sham that 
deceives nobody. You organize, and it is an organization on paper. It 
has no substance, no coherence. You have not Christianity, nor even 
the unenviable reputation of being Christian in the eyes of the churches. 
You have Spiritualism, dead with the dry-rot of aping respectability." 



If this language is not intended to be offensive to the gentlemen 
to whom it. is more especially addressed, then it would seem that 
the author expresses himself without any manifest purpose. Who 
are the persons who present such " a pitiable spectacle ?" Who 
"stand before the world and deny like school boys ?, " Who are 
dealing in "shams?" Who are "aping respectability?" It is 
the only fair inference from his language that he means the men 
whom he has named. It is not my object to answer for others, 
but I may venture to say that not one of the parties referred to has 
made any such childish denial. No one has either attempted to 
hide his convictions, or to evade the personal responsibility which 
accompanies the open expression of his views. Not one of these 
gentlemen wears the mask of a hypocrite, nor is it necessary to 
ape the attributes they are known to possess. There is no excuse 
for representing that the honorable men whom he impolitely cate- 
chises, after the fashion of a country pedagogue, have done any 
such thing, or that they are capable of so demeaning themselves 
under any circumstances. Surely no name can honor such per- 
version of the truth, and the man who essays to be our teacher in 
moral philosophy should set a better example. 

I have never presumed to call any man to account for his honest 
convictions, on any subject. Nor do I think it either necessary or 
desirable to have entire unanimity of opinion, even on questions of 
paramount importance. What I have always regarded as indis- 



432 APPENDIX C. 

pensable, is unrestricted freedom of thought, and the inalienable 
right of private judgment. As we have no recognized authori- 
ties among Spiritualists — and are not likely to have any such arbi- 
trary masters — to determine by any dogmatic and sharply defined 
standard what is, and what is not, orthodox, I still propose to ex- 
ercise the freedom which is a most essential part of my Spiritual- 
ism. Hitherto the writer has never been fairly tried and convicted 
of heresy. It is true that on the groundless assumptions of several 
persons he has more than once been informally arraigned, con- 
demned, and " church-mauled," after the peculiar fashion which 
some call spiritual ! (?) Of late, especially, we have been called 
to witness a spirit of intolerance, and a species of vituperative 
criticism, which have rarely been matched in the institutions of 
sectarian theology — which always have the decency to give a man 
a formal trial before he is condemned as a heretic. This illiberal 
conduct on the part of professed Spiritualists is all out of place 
among Reformers, and incongruous to the last degree. The people 
who thus cover the ugly visage of their bitter intolerance by using 
Spiritualism as a mask, should make haste to pick up their Pro- 
crustean traps, buy a through ticket, and check their baggage to 
Rome. The manifestation of such a spirit among our people is a 
source of extreme mortification to those whose Spiritualism has 
any rational significance. 

If the writer's memory is reliable, this is not the first time Bro. 
Tuttle has revealed his careless reading of those whom he has 
been pleased to criticise. It seems eminently proper that a spiritual 
teacher should keep his eyes open, leaving others, if they will, to 
" walk by faith." Some authentic information may be of use, even 
to Bro. Tuttle, or any other man who may aspire to the dignity of 
leading the Army of Straw. Will our dissatisfied Brother be per- 
suaded to undertake a course of preliminary reading ? It would 
be of no little service in qualifying him for the work of just and 



appendix c. 433 

intelligent criticism. If he has a laudable desire to keep the rest 
of us on the right track, it seems to me that the first thing for him 
to do is to ascertain — from original sources of information — the 
real views of his contemporaries. If this communication serves 
to enlighten him in respect to one of the number, it will not 
have been in vain that he has questioned me, and that I have 
answered. 

In speaking of Spiritualism, Bro. Tuttle tells us. boldly, that he 
would " carve over the portals of its temple the name of no wor- 
shiped God." He must be poor indeed who has no God at all — 
not so much as an African fetich or a Chinese joss. Alas ! Bro. 
Tuttle is in the desperate condition described as " without God in 
the ivorld !" It is only possible that diligent search might reveal 
the presence of one brazen image. But as temples are usually 
supposed to be consecrated to the worship of some divinity, we can 
not see what in the world Bro. Tuttle wants of any temple. If 
there is no God in that part of Ohio, a place of worship would be 
useless as a white elephant, or that hypothetical " fifth wheel" on 
which, however, his argument against Christian Spiritualism is 
made to rotate. Perhaps he can sell out his stock in the temple of 
Spiritualism to some one who can make use of it. A few addi- 
tional acres at Berlin Heights, or a small interest in a brick-yard, 
might be worth more than a whole temple to a man who has no 
God to worship. In granting a quitclaim he can still hold on to 
the copyright of his motto — "NO WORSHIPED GOD "—which he 
may carve in almost any other place, except "over the portals " of 
the Spiritual Temnle, where it would seem to be most essentially 
out of place. Let it be carved in the night, over the Atheist 's 
grave ! 

We call the reader to witness that we have provoked no unpleas- 
ant discussion with any man. We have treated no one uncivilly 
on account of his peculiar views ; and only when subjected to un- 



434 APPENDIX C. 

just criticism have we now and then spoken in our own defense. 
When Bro. Tuttle and a few others make up their minds to pur- 
sue their own respective courses, leaving- other people to enjoy the 
same privilege — without the molestation of offensive speech and 
needless opposition — there will be no more personal controversies 
to foster the foul spirit of malevolence. To be just to all, we must 
respect the rights of the individual. Let every man believe as much 
or little as he will ; have his own God and worship him after the 
manner which best accords with his religious convictions and per- 
sonal convenience. Bro. Tuttle has no right to object to this, and 
we trust that on due reflection he will be reconciled to have it so. 
Why refuse to others what he claims for himself ? In the inter- 
est of peace and Brotherhood, we are ready to make all reasonable 
concessions ; but we demand the privilege of minding our own 
business without the impertinent interference of any o?te. We 
shall not engage in any new holy war, unless we are forced into 
the .attitude of a belligerent. While we have no disposition to dog- 
matize, we will not conceal the fact that we have a choice among 
the Gods of the modern Pantheon. We should much prefer the 
Christian's infinitely wise and loving Father to Atheism, or the "no 
worshiped God " of Bro. Tuttle. We are not inclined to bow be- 
fore any pantheistic divinity. If compatible with the peace of the 
Spiritual Zion, grant us the privilege of worshiping some ideal that 
is not beneath the human conception of the divine. This would do 
Bro. Tuttle good also, since a rational reverence promotes a be- 
coming modesty. We must confess that we never did have much 
respect for the molecular-attraction-hyper-galvanic-principle-physi- 
cal-and-moral- necessity-Know-Nothing-God, of our would-be phil- 
osophers, who are supposed by some to be "aping" the "respect- 
ability " of modern science. Now, Brother, it is of no use to mul- 
tiply questions in the same captious spirit. Further labor in this 
direction will probably be fruitless, as 



APPENDIX C. 435 

" The toil 
Of dropping buckets into enipty wells." 

In conclusion Bro. Tuule exhorts Spiritualists to "aiscard edu- 
cational and religious prejudices." He would not add "another 
sect to the swarm that have buzzed like bumble bees and June bugs 
their brief day ! " And yet, for no other reason than an honest dif- 
ference of opinion, he questions the integrity of gentlemen and 
treats them with undisguised contempt. Our Western critic seems 
disposed to do the preaching and leave us to practice. He finds it 
difficult to follow his own counsel. His advice to " discard. . . .re- 
ligious prejudices," is good, though it does come from a man who 
— all through his last sermon — is careful to use a small c for Chris- 
tian and Christianity, while he as invariably employs capital initial 
letters for Mohammedan and Buddhistic. Behold, how great are 
the Heathen ! It is just possible that there is, even here, a trace of 
something like sectarian prejudice, and a bigoted disposition to be- 
little the Christian name. 

" How use doth breed a habit in a man." 

S. B. Brittan. 
Belvidere Seminary, "Warren Co., X. J., I 

June 19, 1 5 So. ) 



436 APPENDIX C 

THE OFFERED EXPLANATION. 

A POET CLAIMS HIS LICENSE IN HIS LOGIC. 

MY ANSWER TO J. O. BARRETT. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

IN your paper of the date of the 31st ultimo I find a letter from 
Bro. J. O. Barrett, who entertains the opinion that in my treat- 
ment of our Spiritual Guests the undersigned "contradicts much 
of his historical data." It appears from the title-line of your cor- 
respondent's letter that he wants me to "explain. 1 ' To do this 
understanding^ it will be necessary to reproduce the following 
passage from his letter : 

"If I understand him, he rejects the generally-conceded theory of 
philosophy of embodied or materialized spiritual entities ; claiming that 
what so appear as real are only mental pictures, psychic registries or 
thought as conceived by ruling spirits, acting on the brains of their sub- 
jects. . . • Mr. Brittan is too candid and too well posted to allow any 
such sweeping conclusion, and yet his argument certainly covers it." 

It is very evident that Bro. Barrett does not understand me. In 
the exposition of my philosophy of the facts referred to I made an 
explicit statement and classification of such facts as are ordinarily 
embraced under the head of materializations. Let me restate the 
basis of this classification in the briefest manner possible. 

1. The revelation of spirit forms by the opening of the interior or 
Spiritual Vision of the observer, in which case we see spirits as 
they see each other. 

2. The Psycho-Sensorial Impressions, or cerebro-mental pictures, 
produced by the direct action of spirits on the human mind agree- 
ably to psychological laws. 

3. The Transfigurations, or the cases in which the spirit takes 
possession of the medium and so changes the facial lines as to 



APPENDIX C. 437 

represent an image, more or less distinct, of the earthly features 
and expression of the spirit. 

4. The examples which neither depend on the opening of the 
inward vision, nor on the physiological power and agency ot 
spirits, but on their admitted ability to clothe themselves with 
Material Vestments, the elements of which are drawn from the 
medium, from the bodies of other persons, and from the atmos- 
phere. 

Can anything be made clearer than this recognition of four dis- 
tinct classes of facts ? Yet with this explicit statement before him 
your correspondent gravely informs your readers — in respect to the 
visible forms of spirits — that I " claim that what so appear as real 
are only mental pictures, psychic registries of thought as con- 
ceived by ruling spirits, acting on the brains of their subjects ." 
Bro. Barrett calls on me for an explanation, while he is heedless of 
what I have written. My plain statement that the phenomena re- 
ferred to are neither all of the same kind, modo et forma, nor' in 
respect to the philosophy of their causation ; that the essential char- 
acteristics of the facts, in each and every case, must, in my judg- 
ment, determine their classification in at least four separate divi- 
sions, which were clearly enough defined in my lecture — all this is 
overlooked ; and Mr. Barrett utterly disregards all I have said re- 
specting three of the four classes of the facts embraced in my speci- 
fication. Violating all the principles of logic and rules of language, 
he insists that " his [my] argument certainly covers " the " sweeping 
conclusion" that all the facts are " only mental pictures." From 
this it appears that he is not familiar with the contents of my lecture, 
while he has carefully studied the adverse criticisms, in which my 
real position is totally misrepresented. 

If the absurdity of Bro. Barrett's conclusion is not already suf- 
ficiently apparent, an illustration or two will suffice to settle the 
question in the mind of the reader. Suppose a man, in preparing 



438 APPENDIX C. 

a schedule of his real and personal estate, should thus make a rec- 
ord of the same : 

1. United States Government Bonds. 

2. Mining and Petroleum Stocks. 

3. First Mortgages on Real Estate. 

4. Live Stock, Farming Implements and Household Furniture. 

Now, what would be thought of a man who, after carefully look- 
ing over the foregoing schedule, should gravely assume that this 
document covered and justified the conclusion that the man's entire 
property consisted of Mining and Petroleum Interests ? 

Again : Suppose Bro. Barrett should write a letter to the Banner 
of Light concerning the performance of a Quartette, giving a par- 
ticular description of all the parts — Tenor, Soprano, Alto and Basso 
— with critical observations on the laws of harmonics. Now what 
would he think of me if, after perusing his letter, I should take oc- 
casion to solemnly assure your readers that his description of the 
Quartette warranted the conclusion that there was but one singer 
present and but one part performed, and that was the Bass ? Will 
friend Barrett please take notice that in my classification of the 
phenomena, comprehended under the general title of the Material- 
ization of Spirits in four separate divisions, all the parts in the 
quartette are represented ? Now, if J. O. B. can rise from the nar- 
row and incomplete conception he has formed of my philosophy, 
and so enlarge his view as to embrace the other three parts, he 
will be all right, and may at last discover the harmony of the whole. 

More than a third of a century has elapsed since I abandoned 
the old dogma of the resurrection of the corporeal body — the mortal 
remains of Jesus included. After the learned treatise of the late 
Rev. Prof. George Bush, and the luminous contributions of other 
eminent writers, I did not suppose that any enlightened believer in 
Spiritualism now really entertained that idea ; but I was probably 
mistaken. Bro. Barrett still seems to hold on, with a deathless 



APPENDIX C. 439 

tenacity, to that same old dogma of the bodily resurrection, at least 
for one man ; and if for one, why not for all ? Our friend is not 
staggered by the natural and scientific impossibilities in the way of 
such a resurrection. In my humble opinion it is too late for Spirit- 
ual Reformers to waste time in the discussion of such a question. 

An apple-tree was planted long ago by the grave of the venera- 
ble Roger Williams. It is said to be a fact, established by ocular 
demonstration, that the tree sent down a tap-root into his coffin, 
and spreading a fine, fibrous net-work over his mortal remains, 
literally took up— by the natural process of assimilation — every 
vestige of his body. His chemical constituents were converted 
into sweet blossoms and delicious fruits ; and whoever was dis- 
posed to do so, ate the apples. His very skeleton entered into the 
living flesh and blood and bones of the community. We will not 
speculate about his more unsubstantial and volatile elements — gel- 
atine, albumen, and ammonia ; but in the resurrection how will 
that righteous old soul ever find his own scattered phosphates and 
carbonates, since there are so many later proprietors to dispute 
his claim ? 

S. B. Brittan, 
Belvidere Seminary, Warren Co., N. J., ) 
Aug. i, 1880. j 



APPENDIX D. 



BEFORE THE NEW YORK CONFERENCE. 

EDITOR-AT-LARGE WORK UNDER DISCUSSION. 

FROM THE BANNER OF LIGHT, JAN. 8, l88l. 

AT the Harvard Rooms, in New York, on the last Sunday of 
the old year, the regular session of the Spiritual Conference 
was one of unusual interest. Mr. Charles D. Lakey, proprietor 
and publisher of the A?nerican Builder, delivered a ringing speech 
on the work of the Editor-at-Large. Our special reporter has 
furnished us with what he is pleased to call the skeleton of Mr. 
Lakey's eloquent and forcible address. Just now the exhibition of 
this anatomy should interest all of our readers who may be look- 
ing about for the opportunity to make a profitable investment. 
The reader will perceive that this is no very naked skeleton. On 
the contrary, it displays muscle, mind, and motion, while it is 
warmed and animated by something like a vital flame. If any one 
is still cold in his chronic indifference to this important work, he 
may warm himself by the true fire which an earnest spirit kindles.* 

MR. LAKEY'S SPEECH BEFORE THE CONFERENCE. 

I never had but one objection to this Editor-at-Large project, and that 
was, the name. Knowing Dr. Brittan as an able journalist, and having 
some knowledge as well of the press of this country, I never for one 
moment doubted that he would be successful. 
440 



APPENDIX D. 441 

It is a mistake to suppose that the journalism of to-day is but a reflex 
of public opinion. That the press is and always has been conservative, I 
do not deny ; that it likes to be on the popular side of great questions, is 
apparent to all. But the man who stands at the helm of a great news- 
paper in these modern times is not at heart a bad man. He is the pro- 
duct of the civilization of to-day. He is not a religionist. Over him 
superstition holds no sway. He is broad in his views of men and things. 
He believes that right is better than might ; truth than falsehood ; and, as 

" Humanity sweeps onward toward the circle of the younger day," 

he from his elevated position gathers inspiration, and grows into sympa- 
thy with whatever helps lift up the race. A great newspaper has large 
financial interests to be looked after, and at times its course may seem to 
antagonize the right ; but give it a chance, and it will show that it is not 
in sympathy with wrong, and above all, that it does believe in fair play. 

Spiritualism is a great religion, coming down out of the heavens to 
bless this world. Men do not welcome a new religion. They try to 
suppress it, to Herod it out of existence. In olden times fire and sword, 
rack and thumbscrew were brought into requisition to destroy that which 
the gods had ordained should live. To-day no such means are available; 
and yet the means employed are ten times more powerful, for they con- 
sist of appeals to the judgment and to the heart. Spiritualism is a re- 
ligion of living facts ; facts unanswerable, that are born to it with each 
new clay of its life. From the very first its enemies have sought to break 
the force of these facts by appeals through the public press. For a quar- 
ter of a century there was a general denial ; the facts did not exist ; and 
when the testimony as to the facts became perfectly overwhelming, resort 
was had to misrepresentation. And I undertake to say that no system 
of religion or philosophy has ever been so vilely slandered as Spiritualism. 
The pulpits of the land have rung with the falsest of charges. And what 
wonder if, amid the falling pillars of a faith on which subsistence de- 
pended, men everywhere should implore the aid of that great engine, the 
press. They have been doing this for years with more or less success. 
Nor should it be thought strange that statements coming from sources of 
influence, that were a sort of guarantee of their truth, should, however 
much of falsehood they might contain, often find their way into the daily 
newspaper. 

It was to help counteract such influences as these that Dr. S. B. Brittan 
modestly began his work one year ago, in the full belief that the press 
of this country was in favor of fair play. I need not tell you that he 
19* 



44 2 APPENDIX D. 

has been eminently successful ; this you already know. The great daily 
press has received his contributions and scattered them broadcast. His 
articles have been timely ; shells from a rifled cannon, falling with un- 
erring certainty into the camp of the enemy. When " a minister of the 
gospel " in our neighboring city of Brooklyn slanders us in his pulpit 
before an audience of two thousand people, our Editor-at-Large smites 
him before an audience of seventy-five thousand in the Brooklyn Eagle. 
Almost without exception, where an insidious attack on Spiritualists 
has been smuggled into the columns of an influential newspaper, Dr. 
Brit tan has been allowed to have his say ; the antidote has followed 
the poison ; and when he applies such an antidote no man dare suggest 
that he does not belong to the regulars. 

So efficient have been these services that it has been thought advisable 
to keep Dr. Brittan in office. Funds are wanted for this purpose. Can 
any doubt that money thus expended will be put to good use? Let us see. 
Suppose a business man found it necessary to correct through the press 
false statements concerning his affairs, and it required fifteen thousand 
lines to do the work. Ordinarily the cost of such matter would vary but 
little from a dollar a line when paid for as an advertisement, to say nothing 
about the cost of labor in preparing the matter. I have written many 
columns for weekly papers that were paid for at this rate. The cost, then, 
to the business man would be in the neighborhood of $15,000. But Dr. 
Brittan has had printed within the past year, in defense of Spiritualism, 
matter that would make about fifteen thousand lines if it had been charged 
for as an advertisement. Not one cent has been paid for its insertion, 
and all he has received for his services has been about $1,300, less some 
two hundred dollars necessary incidental expenses of the service. 

Look at his work from another point of view — from a more elevated 
position, where we get a more commanding outlook. The church spends 
millions of dollars annually for the propagation of the Christian faith. 
The expenses of a city church, with an average attendance of one thousand 
people, are seldom, if ever, less than $15,000 in the aggregate. In many 
instances, of course, the cost is immensely greater. The Rev. John Hall, 
I believe, gets a salary of $20,000. Now, the pastor of such a church, if 
he didn't go off yachting or fishing in the summer, would in one year 
preach one hundred and four sermons. He would speak chiefly to one 
congregation ; but if he had a new congregation on every occasion, he 
could say at the end of the year that he had presented his views of the 
truth to one hundred and four thousand people. 

Now then, I will assume that one of Dr. Brittan's articles is worth as 



APPENDIX D. 443 

much in defense of Spiritualism as any single sermon is worth in defense 
of Orthodoxy. Is this fair? Yes? Very well. Then estimate the value 
of Dr. Brittan's article in the Boston Herald, which is seen and read by 
more than three hundred thousand people ! on the supposition that one 
paper is read by three persons. One article, which could hardly have 
cost Spiritualists, more than forty dollars, is more effective than all the 
preaching of a city pastor during three years. Where the city pastor, 
under the most favorable conditions, reaches one hundred thousand people 
in a year — and this he never can do speaking to the same congregation — 
your Editor-at-Large in one day speaks to three hundred thousand. 

Such papers as the Boston Herald, Rochester Democrat, Toronto Mail, 
Cincinnati Enquirer, Boston Transcript, Hartford Times, and many others 
of large circulation and influence, have opened their columns freely to 
hear what we have to say in defense of our sublime truths. We can well 
afford to keep this veteran journalist at his good work. Now that the 
opportunity comes, let it not be said that Spiritualists were indifferent to 
the needs of the time. All honor to a press that has shown its independ- 
ence of a false public sentiment, and that has been willing to hear both 
sides of a question second in importance to none that has ever stirred the 
heart of humanity. I say : Let the good work go on. 



" There is a light about to beam, 
There is a fount about to stream, 
There is a midnight blackness 

Changing into gray ; 
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen, 
Aid it, hopes of honest men, 
Aid it, paper, aid it, type, 
Aid it, for the hour is ripe, 
And our earnest must not slacken 

Into play. 
Men of thought and men of action, 

Clear the way!" 



444 APPENDIX D. 

DR. BRITTAN'S ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 

DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING IN NEW YORK, 1 88 1. 



CLAIMS OF THE SECULAR PRESS BUREAU. 



SPIRITUALISM is older than the Egyptian obelisk, and looks 
down on us from an eminence above the Pyramids. The evi- 
dences of its phenomena run back through the shadowy past until 
they are lost in pre-historic periods. In every age some voice has 
spoken, vaguely perhaps, out of the darkness, to admonish us that 
visible forms are not all of life, and that tangible substances do not 
embrace the more essential and substantial elements of Being. 
Everywhere a great hand with index finger points back along the 
line of material causation, until that line fades out in the distance 
before our imperfect vision. At last, the whole chain of physical 
causation dissolves in our grasp, and we are left face to face with 
an Invisible World ! As spiritual phenomena, in some form, neces- 
sarily accompany all human existence, and, to say the least, have 
occurred in every period within the limits of authentic history, we 
can scarcely make a mistake in celebrating the anniversary of 
Spiritualism on almost any day that may best suit the convenience 
of our people. Whether there is any special propriety in celebrat- 
ing its advent to-day, is a question of secondary importance, which 
I do not propose to discuss. 

I am rather here to consider the methods by which the present 
interests and final triumphs of our cause may be most effectually 
advanced and accomplished. It has been suggested that I should 
occupy the few moments accorded to me by the courtesy of your 
Committee in making some brief explanatory observations concern- 
ing the peculiar work of the Secular Press Bureau. Let no 
one make the mistake of supposing that this is exclusively my work. 



APPENDIX D. 



445 



No ; I can not justly claim so much honor for myself. This emi- 
nently practical and important enterprise originated in the Spirit- 
World. In the most essential sense it is the work of all spirits and 
mortals who have thus far contributed either words of encourage- 
ment, spiritual influence, or material means for its advancement. 
The most I can claim for myself is that I have the honor to be the 
servant of this noble company. In this broad view of the subject, 
I trust I may speak to you freely, without the restraint which a 
person of ordinary modesty naturally feels in referring to himself 
and his labors. 

From the beginning of the present movement Spiritualism has 
been obliged to contend with an unscrupulous opposition. The 
enemy has employed every available means to mislead the public 
mind in respect to its real merits and the amazing magnitude of its 
proportions. For more than thirty years that opposition — inspired 
at once by the dogmatic theology of the church, the scientific ma- 
terialism of the schools, and the popular skepticism of the times — 
has used the secular press to dispute and misinterpret the facts; to 
misrepresent our principles and practices before the world; to con- 
ceal and pervert the truth; to caricature innocent persons and pub- 
lic assemblies; to excite'a feeling of disgust at the mere mention of 
the name and of contempt for our most sacred convictions; to de- 
nounce all mediums as unprincipled tricksters, and to defame the 
honest disciples of a great but unpopular truth. No systematic at- 
tempt was made to roll back this foul tide of misrepresentation of 
the noblest principles and malicious abuse of unoffending people.* 
It was left to set like a spring freshet through all the principal 
channels of popular thought and general intelligence. Only here 



* In this remark we must be understood as making honorable exception of the im- 
portant labors of the spiritualistic press and platform which, to a great extent, have 
been characterized by an earnest spirit and admirable method. 



446 APPENDIX D. 

and there some man of unusual personal influence was able to ob- 
tain -a respectful hearing in any public journal of wide circulation 
and commanding- influence. So few were the exceptions to the 
rule, that, so recently as 1879 — when the question of the Secular 
Press Bureau began to be agitated — it was confidently predicted 
by influential Spiritualists that the experiment would end in failure; 4 
that the space necessary for a proper statement and defense of our 
views could not be had in the secular papers, especially in those of 
large circulation. It was boldly declared that we should be forced 
to purchase the requisite space at "advertising rates." Those 
people believed, we must presume, that the spirit of prophecy was 
upon them, and that their words would be verified. But they were 
mistaken. I am not here to question their sincerity, to cast sus- 
picion upon their motives, or to say a single unkind word of any 
one who may have honestly entertained this conviction. 

But I am reminded that the occasion calls for some acknowledg- 
ment to the Secular Press. It is doubtless our fault, as a people, 
that we did not receive more respectful attention at an earlier 
period. What had we done to command recognition ? We had 
never placed any declaration of principles before the world. We 
were not wanting in the visible elements necessary to constitute a 
great body; but there was no common law of cohesive attraction 
to bind them together. We were so intensely individualized that 
there was neither unity of purpose nor concert of action among the 
people. If we were agreed on any one thing, it was that each 
should have his own way every time, and without any embarrassing 
reference to the common welfare. In the public apprehension, and 
in fact, we were not a united people, but only a very harmless and 
well-behaved mob. For almost a third of a century we had failed 
to make any concerted, intelligent and determined attempt to show 
through the press of the country that we were in earnest in our de- 
mand to be heard for the sake of our Cause. 



APPENDIX D. 447 

When at last the experiment was made, we soon discovered that 
there was more real manhood in the sanctum than the editorial 
chair was credited with by some of our prominent Spiritualists. 
Justice demands the acknowledgment that, personally, and as a 
representative of Spiritualism, I have met with many evidences ot 
respectful consideration, and often with a high sense of honor, that 
does not alway characterize the papers ostensibly devoted to the 
religious and spiritual interests of mankind. For a period of over 
thirty years — in spite of the common prejudice against Spiritualism 
and all my reputed heresies — I have been treated with uniform hos- 
pitality by the journalists of the secular press in even* part of the 
United States, and, indeed, wherever the English language is 
spoken. I trust I shall not be suspected of personal vanity in say- 
ing, to the honor of the press, so much as is demanded by the moral 
law of reciprocal justice. 

It was in 1879 tnat tne resolution was formed — at the instigation 
of the Spirit-World— to make a determined effort to use the secular 
press for the purpose of more fully informing the public mind re- 
specting the facts and philosophy of Spiritualism. The correspond- 
ence of the Editor-at-Large was almost even-where kindly received, 
promptly published, and otherwise treated with the utmost respect. 
Of the entire series of letters contributed by the Bureau to the 
Secular Press, in the year 1880, there are only three that have not 
been published in some influetitial secular paper. In several in- 
stances the editors have relinquished much of the space in the edi- 
torial department to make room for this correspondence. The 
letters have very rarely occupied less than a column — often two or 
three times that space, and in some instances have extended to 
seven or eight columns. My good friend, Mr. Charles U La- 
key — well known as an experienced journalist and as the Editor 
and Proprietor of the American Builder — estimates that, at the 
proper advertising rates, the columns which this correspondence 



44-8 APPENDIX D. 

occupied the first year have a commercial value of $15,000; and 
yet not the first dime has been paid for this space ! 

In this correspondence the enemies of Spiritualism have been 
fearlessly arraigned ; error, hypocrisy and falsehood have been un- 
masked, and the general subject freely discussed ; always, I believe, 
in respectful language, and with a just regard to the essential dig- 
nity of the subject. To-day Spiritualism meets its enemies in 
the largest intellectual and moral arena on earth — the newspaper 
press of the United States ! Thus a great door has been opened, 
wide enough to admit the boldest champion of the Future — opened 
— if you will have it so — to be closed no more ! 

Friends : this is a more significant victory than many people 
may imagine. That beautiful Spiritualist who came out of Naza- 
reth was something more than thirty years old when he was 
crucified. Modern Spiritualism — according to your record of its 
birth — is about the same age. Spiritualism has also been derided, 
despised and spit upon; even its most blameless disciples have 
been viewed with suspicion, and punished with social ostracism 
for their honest convictions. Many a sensitive medium has found 
his or her way leading up the rugged steep of some moral Calvary. 
Not a few of the early champions of this cause have tasted the 
"wormwood and gall ;" and the " crown of thorns "' is quite too 
real to belong to sacred history alone. But the long impending 
crisis is here. Once more " the veil of the temple is rent." The 
great truth— always strong in latent forces, and enduring forever- 
is mightier now than ever before. Its final triumph is assured. 
Even now, without giving up the ghost, Spiritualism descends 
from the cross ! The white flag of the Immortals, already un- 
furled above the Spiritual Battle-ground, is emblazoned with the 
symbols of victory ! 

When people are invited to contribute money for any purpose, 
they naturally desire to clearly comprehend the object, and to be 



APPENDIX D. 449 

satisfied that the apprehended results will warrant the proposed 
expenditure. A single illustration will enable you to settle this 
question, in its relation to the different methods employed in the 
diffusion of spiritual knowledge. Let us presume that we have one 
hundred public assemblies convened to-day, and on each succeed- 
ing Sunday, to listen to the teachings from the Spiritual platform. 
Suppose that these assemblies average two hundred and fifty per- 
sons (this is probably a large estimate) ; this would give us a total 
of twenty-five thousand people convened to listen to the Sunday 
lecture in one hundred different places. Now should you publish 
the lecture in a paper with the circulation which the Boston Herald 
is known to possess ; and if an average of three persons should 
read each copy, or hear it read, the message would reach no less 
than three hundred and ten thousand persons. This number is 
77iore than twelve times as many as would listen to its utterance 
from the one hundred platforms. 

The comparative expense of the two methods is a no less sug- 
gestive feature of the subject. In our large cities it probably costs 
some fifty dollars a Sunday to keep up the meetings — to compen- 
sate the speaker, pay rent, advertising and other incidental ex- 
penses. But let us make the modest estimate that the one hundred 
public meetings only involve an entire average expense of $20 
for each and every Sunday. This would give $2,000 as the aggre- 
gate cost of the one hundred platform services for a single day. 
The man who should prepare the same matter for the Herald 
might be satisfied if he received one-fortieth part of that sum ; 
and yet instead of his labors being limited to an audience of say 
25,000, he would probably reach and influence more than a quarter 
of a million ! But if we assume that not more than an average of 
one person will read each copy of the paper, he would still de- 
liver his message to over 103,000 souls, or more than four times as 
many as would listen to the one hundred speakers j and all this 



450 APPENDIX D. 

additional publicity for one-fortieth part of the actual cost of the 
platform method of teaching. The facts confirmed by our limited 
experience would perhaps warrant a stronger statement. It is 
estimated that during the first year of our work, the Secular Press 
Bureau Correspondence reached 2,000,000 of people at the very 
small cost to the subscribers of $1,300, which is less than three 
per centum on the actual expense of the other principal method 
employed for the diffusion of spiritual knowledge. 

I have not presented this striking contrast in respect to the rela- 
tive efficiency and economy of our principal methods of teaching 
because I would dispense with the spiritual platform. By no means. 
A great cause, so much misunderstood, cannot afford to abandon 
the platform where its just claims may be elucidated, and the mag- 
netic presence accompany the spoken word with the " demonstra- 
tions of the spirit and power." Nevertheless, in the light of the 
facts submitted, we shall be able to understand why it is that the 
pulpit has lost its prestige. The time was, within the memory of 
some of my hearers, when the human mind was under the guidance 
of the pulpit ; when the minister of the parish set the fashion of 
popular sentiment ; but that time has gone, nevermore to return 
in the history of this people. Now the press is the great educator. 

The real facts in the case are so remarkable that they should 
command instant and thoughtful attention. It is only through the 
secular press that we can hope to reach the skeptical classes, who 
most especially need to be enlightened on the great questions of 
the Spiritual Reformation. The secular press is already firmly 
established on a capital of many millions. It possesses the public 
confidence and commands immense facilities for the wide diffusion 
of all desirable information. It reaches the whole community as 
no other human instrumentality ever can. Shall we turn this 
powerful engine to account for Truth's sake ? Shall we open its 
manifold channels and pour a flood of spiritual light through them 



APPENDIX D. 45I 

to illuminate the nations ? If we are so disposed, there is no power 
in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, that will hinder the execu- 
tion of our purpose. 

Now, friends, what do you propose to do about it ? We should 
do something worthy of our great opportunity, and not leave the 
spirits to perform all the labor. The man who is able to do the 
most for this cause — most to elevate and illuminate the world — is 
the most fortunate of men. His unselfish work for humanity must 
lift him up into loving fellowship with the purest and noblest natures. 
Nor will he be obliged to wait until he goes to another world for 
his reward. The blessing comes in the generous deed. And then, 
there is a kind of poetic justice in this world, that will not permit a 
truly noble nature, like Peter Cooper, for example, to be lost to 
the world's remembrance. Always those who labor the most un- 
selfishly for mankind are revered while living, and at last they find 
an imperishable mausoleum in the affections of those whom their 
wisdom may have exalted and their heavenly charities uplifted and 
redeemed. The world soon forgets its merchant princes who 
devote long lives to unworthy schemes of personal aggrandizement ; 
but the names and memories of the world's benefactors and redeem- 
ers are tenderly cherished, and their bays are green when oblivion 
mercifully draws her veil over the record of the sordid soul. 

Finally, in your efforts to enlighten mankind by extending a 
knowledge of the truth, I venture to expre s the hope that you will 
not lose sight of the claims of the Secular Press Bureau. Believe 
me, friends, the grandest of all instruments is ready at our hands, 
and it may be used for the noblest of all human purposes. The 
Secular Press is a gigantic telephone that speaks with numberless 
tongues all over the world. It has a voice in every household in 
the land. Its polyglot embraces all languages. Its printed leaves 
are numerous as the leaves of the forest. They rustle in the air 
around us ; they scintillate in every dark place, and their light — 



452 APPENDIX D. 

like the rays of a vertical sun — falls everywhere. If we are suf- 
ficiently awake to the necessities of the times ; if we are really 
worthy of such a glorious inheritance of spiritual freedom and 
knowledge; then the Angel of the New Dispensation — through an 
inspired and living discipleship — shall lay his mighty hand on this 
great Engine of Light, Liberty and Progress. This done, and we 
shall have moved the lever that moves the world ! 



APPENDIX E. 



OPINIONS OF DISTINGUISHED SPIRITUALISTS. 

HAVING accorded the adverse witnesses a fair and patient 
hearing — and more space in this volume than the nature 
of their opposition really seems to. merit — it is eminently proper 
that the friends of the Secular Press Bureau should be heard 
in its behalf. Accordingly we give place to the following testimony 
of several eminent friends : 

From Hon. Nelson Cross to the Editor of the Banner of Light. 

It was with great unanimity that Dr. S. B. Brittan was chosen to dis- 
charge the duties of an office or occupation which for the want of a better 
title was denominated as " Editor-at-Large. ... It would seem that a 
good share of the opposition to the new enterprise, which manifested it- 
self at an early day, proceeded from a misconception of what was to be 
implied from the use of a cognomen which naturally suggested some 
supervisory control over the press, or of the writings of others designed 
for publication ; whereas, in fact, the name was restricted to its most 
limited sense — to wit, to write and to publish, without regard to any par- 
ticular vehicle of communication, except as it might be suggested by its 
appropriateness to the particular subject under review ; the object being, 
so far as the liberality of publishers would allow, to answer the defamers 
of Spiritualism in their own columns. 

That there should have been any serious opposition on the part of pro- 
fessed Spiritualists to the plan of providing a means of refuting in some 
fit and convincing manner the slanderous misstatements of the opposition, 
concerning the religion and philosophy of Spiritualism, was not a little 
surprising to those of us who were instrumental in bringing it about. It 
certainly could do the cause no harm, and there was ground for belief 
that it might be productive of great good. And so long as those only who 
favored the project were called upon to contribute to its success, it was 

453 



454 APPENDIX E. 

thought that others who differed with them in opinion would be satisfied 
to observe its effects upon the spiritual cause, advantageous or otherwise, 
before arraying themselves in hostility to it. 

The eminent qualifications of Prof. Brittan to discharge in the best way 
the manifold duties of Editor-at-Large, have never been called in question. 
Had not his self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause, first, of liberal Chris- 
tianity, and afterward of Spiritualism, left him in his declining years com- 
paratively poor, he too might offer (as some, for reasons best known to 
themselves, have already done), to do the work gratuitously, for which his 
thirty-four years of constant labor in the same field have preeminently 
qualified him. But while others, whose achievements have been no 
greater, have received gratuities made up of voluntary contributions, that 
they should not want, is it indeed so unreasonable that the Editor-at- 
Large should be paid for his work a sum which is really insufficient, after 
all, to supply his daily wants? 

The exhaustive articles of Prof. Brittan, put forth in his new capacity, 
whether in advocacy of the spiritual belief or in refutation of many of the 
virulent attacks upon it through miscellaneous publications, religious. and 
secular, have been numerous and widespread. Nor have these articles 
been mainly promulgated through spiritualistic organs. On the contrary, 
they have, in almost every instance, been admitted to the columns of 
leading opposition papers, and to such an extent that it is not too much 
to affirm that they have already been laid before upwards of a million of 
readers, few of whom could have been reached in any other way. 

I do not gather from anything that has been said that there was any dis- 
agreement as to the qualifications of Dr Brittan to perform in the best 
manner the duties to which he was assigned. It is not too much to affirm 
in this connection that the summary of literary work performed by the 
Editor-at-Large in the first twelve months of his engagement is alike 
creditable to him and to the cause which for upwards of thirty years he 
has so ably sustained. There can be no division of sentiment upon this 
point, and the value of his work once conceded, it is incumbent on the 
friends of the cause to put forth every effort that may be practical for its 
support and continuance. Nelson Cross. 

194 Broadway, New York City. 



From Prof. William Denton, the Eminent Scientist and Spiritualist. 

Wellesley, Mass., Oct. 26th, 1880. 
To the Editor-at-Large Committee : 
Gentlemen,— -The appointment of our friend, S. B. Brittan, to the 



APPENDIX E. 455 

position of Editor-at-Large, was one of the best means ever employed for 
the promulgation of spiritual ideas among the body of the people. In 
no other way can we as readily reach the thinkers of our country. I have 
seen abundant evidence of the great value of his correspondence to the 
secular press — as I felt sure it would be when I first read of the proposi- 
tion that he should become Editor-at-Large. 

Mr. Brittan's long editorial experience ; his superior mental culture, 
combined with a knowledge of Spiritualism second to that of no living 
man, render him a preeminently proper person for the work, which has 
thus far been carried on in a way most eminently to further the ends de- 
sired. I trust that his valuable services will be secured for his further 
continuance in one of the most important fields in which a man can be 
employed. Yours for progress, 

William Denton. 



From Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten to the Editor of the Banner of Light. 

" It has long seemed to me a reproach on the Spiritualists of America 
that Prof. Brittan, one of the earliest and most indefatigable pioneers 
of the movement, one of its most brilliant writers and philosophic thinkers, 
should have so long been permitted to remain in comparative obscurity, 
and to waste his splendid talents on fugitive and ill-sustained efforts to 
promote the great work of progress. If faithful service and an unstained 
life, too, can add prestige to his high literary attainments, Prof. Brittan's 
reentree to his legitimate sphere of editorial labor should be hailed by all 
true Spiritualists, as it is by me, with a cordial all-hail of welcome ! " 



From Hon. J. L. C Sullivan, formerly American Minister to Portugal. 
THE SECULAR PRESS BUREAU. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

We claim our millions of Spiritualists ; and Spiritualists are all think- 
ing men, most of them earnest ones. We all desire the spread of our 
grand and glorious faith, which is freighted with blessing for life and for 
eternity to every new recipient of it. We are astonished at the ignorant 
blindness of those who will not open their eyes to the celestial light of its 
evidences, and indignant at the scornful ostracism of which Spiritualism is 
the object on the part of the vast majority, composed of mere routine 
religionists, sense-bound materialists, and thoughtless indifferentists, living 



456 APPENDIX E. 

for the interests and concerns of this short span of life alone. We all 
look forward with confidence to the coming time, when the light now only 
a rising dawn on the horizon of our modern civilization, shall illumine 
and regenerate the world, differing from the sun in that it will then know 
no setting. 

. We know that our Spiritualist papers, precious and dear as they may be 
to ourselves, reach but few occasional readers beyond the circle of those 
who need no convincing. I have heard no estimate beyond forty or fifty 
thousand subscribers for the whole of them together. Yet here we have 
the mortification of reading in the last Banner of Light your article on the 
fourth page, headed "Trial of Spiritualism and its Enemies," referring 
to Prof. Brittan's splendid reply to Dr. Hawley in the Saratoga Eagle, en- 
titled " Trial of Spiritualism and its Enemies," and on the eighth page 
the beggarly account of subscriptions for the support of the " Secular Press 
Bureau " under Prof. Brittan's zealous and masterly direction, amounting 
thus far for this year only to about $Soo (for the whole of last year it 
reached only that of about $1,300), while his cash outlay cannot be less 
than $300. And in each of these twO years the noble contribution from 
some anonymous donor (only one, but a Spiritualist indeed), was $500. 
These subscriptions ought not in any year to fall short of at least $5 000. 
Estimating an average of three readers per number issued by the secular 
papers which published his articles last year, Prof. Brittan brought the de- 
fense of our Spiritualism before probably not less than two millions of 
readers, few of whom would otherwise have ever read a word of our evi- 
dences and arguments. Pie addresses the secular editors only when they 
have written or admitted to their columns articles of hostility against us 
which furnish a fair ground for appeal to their justice for the privilege of a 
reply. And his tone is always so courteous,his style so elegant, his knowl- 
edge of the subject so broad and thorough, and his reasoning so lucid and 
logical, that no small number of them feel that they are gracing their col- 
umns while honoring themselves by the act of fair play in publishing his 
masterly answers in our behalf. His work is incomparably the most im- 
portant and valuable that is now being carried on through this potent en- 
gine for moving worlds — the Press. Every true Spiritualist ought to 
"hold up the hands" of such a worker engaged in such a service, and 
thus to take his own part in helping the doing of it. There are many 
thousands among our own number, to whom it would be a small matter to 
economize a dollar a year to support, encourage and extend the operation of 
this " Secular Press Bureau," which I am glad to see you substitute as a title 
for that of " Editor-at-Large." This Bureau ought to have a couple of 



APPENDIX E. 457 

good rooms, a good short-hand writer to receive dictation, and two or 
three assistants for copying and other collaboration, under Prof. Brittan's 
direction. He could then do, I am sure, tenfold the large amount of 
work now accomplished, and with a mind so relieved from care and me- 
chanical labor, that it would be even improved in quality. Surely the ap- 
peal which speaks in this mere suggestion of the facts which experience has 
now established, cannot be in vain. 

Very respectfully, J. L. O'SULLIVAN. 

59 Lexington Avenue, New York, March 11th. 



THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

I am glad to see that the " Editor-at-Large " project is meeting with 
substantial approval on the part of Spiritualists. I wish I were able to 
contribute largely to the fund required to carry it forward ; but lacking the 
material means, perhaps you will permit me to say an earnest word or two 
to such as are more fortunate in that respect. 

It has seemed to me a very happy thought on the part of the originators 
of this project, whether in this sphere or a higher, to thus attempt to carry 
the war more vigorously into the enemy's lines, and at the same time to 
secure to the cause a more full measure of the services of one who has 
proved himself eminently fitted for this special work. 

Surely no one acquainted with the labors of Dr. Brittan in behalf of 
Modern Spiritualism, antedating even the period usually assigned as the 
origin of the movement, can doubt his especial qualifications for the ser- 
vice for which he has been nominated. Nor can there be any question — 
in view of the facts that he early sacrificed the emoluments of a prominent 
position in an ecclesiastical body in order to advocate an unpopular truth, 
and has received no adequate pecuniary return for an ordinary lifetime of 
arduous toil — that in undertaking this service he should receive a suitable 
remuneration, such as will enable him to lay aside other avocations and 
devote his energies to this. 

Of course no one is expected to contribute to this movement except 
those who see the desirableness of the work proposed, and who feel that 
Bro. Brittan is fully competent to its acceptable performance. Probably 
most Spiritualists, who are not professional writers or speakers, will feel 
that he is able to do the work far more satisfactorily than they them- 
selves could do, even could they command the time. Certainly all such 
20* 



458 APPENDIX E. 

have an undoubted right to employ him to act in their own behalf, if they 
see fit, and to compensate him for it if they choose. 

It is difficult, then, to perceive the reasonableness of objections that 
have been raised against this proposal in certain quarters. I cannot but 
think its purpose and animus have been strangely misconceived by those 
brethren in the household who have imagined it to be a step toward 
popery, or a scheme to betray Spiritualism into the hands of its enemies, or 
even an eleemosynary project, contrived to give one Spiritualistic journal 
some advantage over others. Since the " Editor-at-Large " is invested 
with no control over anybody's opinions, or over any portion of the press, 
Spiritualistic or other, and since Bro. Brittan's veteran services in the 
cause give a guarantee of his future faithfulness at least as secure as we have 
on the part of any new-fledged advocate, and since, moreover, his produc- 
tions are to be given to the public, when possible, through the channels of 
the opposition, it is not apparent how the project can result in any of the 
evils prognosticated. True, that journal (the Banner of Light) which has 
had the good judgment to encourage and aid this plan, is entitled to what- 
ever credit for enterprise and generous public spirit may be justly due in 
the case ; and this will doubtless be accorded by all right minded people, 
who, I am confident, will see no occasion for evil surmisings or petty 
jealousy in the matter. 

Let, then, the good work go on. Let Dr. Brittan be supplied, by those 
who have the will and the means, with sufficient funds to relieve him from 
all pecuniary anxieties. Those who aid in this work will be sure of an 
abundant reward in the approval of their own consciences, and of that 
better world which rejoices in all unselfish effort. A. E. Newton. 

Ancora, N. J. 



EDITOR-AT-LARGE FUND. 

It gives us great pleasure to present the following letter to our 
readers. The noble response of the writer to our call for funds to 
place Prof. Brittan in a proper condition to carry into full effect 
the plan proposed, does honor to his head and heart. Although 
not written for publication, we feel that he has said what should be 
known, hence we hope he will excuse us for the liberty we have 
taken. If others respond sufficiently to warrant Prof. Brittan 
accepting the Call to Duty, at precisely the time when his services 



APPENDIX E. 45g 

are needed in the peculiar field mapped out for him by the Spirit 
World, and which he of all men in our ranks is most competent to 
fill, we shall feel that we have done our duty in the premises. 

Ed. B. of L. 

Springfield, Ohio, Nov. i, 1879. 
Messrs. Colby & Rich, Boston, Mass. : 

Gentlemen — In the noble effort to secure the services of Prof. S. B. 
Brittan, of New York, as a worker in the labor of love and the uplifting 
of humanity, I subscribe and hereby place in your hands one hundred dol- 
lars, for the proposed undertaking to raise a proper amount as salary, and 
so secure his aid in the field of the coming universal religion. There is no 
man more able, more willing to use his pen for the benefit of his kind than 
Dr. Brittan. May the lovelight from above warm up the hearts of those 
who are able to contribute to this much needed work at this time. We 
must not fail in this. Very truly yours, Jerome Fassler, Sr. 



ENCOURAGING WORDS. 

The following extracts are from letters received from a man ot 
wealth engaged in extensive business. Not long ago he felt that 
the responsibilities of this life were too much for human nature to 
bear. Harnessed by the necessities of business to a multitude of 
cares and constant labors, his yoke was not easy and his burden 
was not light. He was impatient, and felt a strong inclination to 
retire from the scene of conflict. He did not feel equal to the battle 
of life, and would fain have been "mustered out of service." But 
Spiritualism has made a moral hero of this man, and invested his 
character with the attributes of the noblest type of manhood. He 
is still devoted to business, but with such higher aims and ends 
as are above all selfish considerations. While Spiritualism has 
given him manly strength, and made him resolute in his purpose 
to work unselfishly for humanity, it has also softened his nature, 
ennobled his life, and developed out of the depths of his interior be- 



460 APPENDIX E. 

ing those loving affections which are the immortal bloom and glory 
of the spirit : 

" Brother, I am aware of some of your trials, sacrifices and sufferings ; 
but new work awaits you on the earth, which you must do before your 
passport will be given you. This I learn from those who know. . 
There are many workers, and the work is for all humankind, in and out 
of the body. Look upward and wait a little ; you will do your work be- 
fore you go home. You will certainly be released from ' the committee of 
ways and means.' Dearest Brother, I have been in the crucible. No 
man could survive the trials I have passed through without help from 
above. In reaching upward I have clasped hands with my leaders. Bear 
up, my brother ; tenderly are you guarded by those who know you better 
than the world knows you. They will not fail you, but will help to do 
your work here. Cheer up, be strong, and fear nothing. All is well!" 

" ' Many are called, but few are chosen/ because only the few do stand 
the fiery test. The weak ones are left behind. They must have more 
time to grow strong ; but the Father's love is over all. In memory of 
one whose coming is celebrated, I enclose you a little present. He is 
near and dear to me, and the blessing comes in his name. While I have 
not forgotten you, neither are you forgotten by those that live in the spheres 
of Love and Truth. You are the object of tender affection, for the true 
heart that is within you is known to them. In their name do I speak to 
you and bid you to be strong. Keep your face to the sunlight. I know 
the watchful care that is over you. Go on, my brother, fearing nothing. 
We will do our work in defiance of all forms of evil. I have conquered 
many, and shall overcome all in the name of the God of my people. I 
shall bless the day when I can take your hand, and behold the face of the 
man who bears the scars of many battles. Go on — fight on — the army of 
Truth is with you. With tender blessing, I remain your brother, ever 
and ever. J. F. S." 



From Mis. Nettie C. Maynard. 

11 Dr. Brittan's beautiful letter in the last Banner should be read daily 
by certain ignorant, would-be critics, were we not expressly forbidden to 
' cast our pearls before swine.' Fearlessly do your grand work. O Worker ! 
The world has need of every stroke from your inspired pen. Here I know 
you have one true, sympathetic brother, who feels an anxiety for your suc- 
cess, and will help hold up your hands while you fight the battles of our 
Spiritual Zion." 



APPENDIX E. 46I 

A STRONG WITNESS. 

An intelligent gentleman whose residence is near Boston — a 
man of classical education, a lawyer, and an earnest reformer, who, 
at the beginning, took little or no interest in the Secular Press 
Bureau — writes, under a recent date, in a manner which indicates 
the greatest interest in the work. We make the following extracts 
from this gentleman's correspondence : 

" Yes ! The popular press publication of the truths and evidences of 
Modern Spiritualism is a good movement. At its start I was a little shy 
of it, not seeing clearly the purpose, nor comprehending the efficiency 
and value of it. But its now nearly two years' trial demonstrates its prac- 
ticability and exceeding usefulness in diffusing spiritual light and knowl- 
edge amid the theologic works of Orthodoxy. 

''Professor Brittan, in the management of the enterprise, is the right man 
in the right place. He is familiar with the history and philosophy of 
Spiritualism ; he has been a minister, and knows the ignorance and pre- 
judice which environ the clerical mind. He himself has arisen above 
the unreasonable folly and darkness into light and liberty, and can there- 
fore assist, and does assist, both shepherds and their flocks who are yet 
floundering in the spiritual marshes and lowlands. Capital ! Excellent ! 
Good ! Superlatively good ! is the review of Dr. Hawley, in a late issue of 
the Banner of Light '. Both in its matter (i. e., powder and shot), its exact 
aim, and its complete and artistic demolition of the bull's-eye, it is all that 
could be asked for or desired. Chevaliers may boast of the recent vic- 
tories of American racers in England and France. But I rejoice in the 
coming dominion of Christ over Satan ; and as a foregleam of that good 
time coming I hail with loving sympathy and thanks Dr. Brittan's elegant 
and masterly exposition and refutation of the errors of the doctors of the 
church. 

" Glad ! very glad am I that his pen is not idle, inasmuch as it accom- 
plishes such magnificent achievements in behalf of Truth in Modern 
Spiritualism as the American Secular Press from time to time gives to the 
reading public. 

" That his days may be long in the land and his efforts for the diffusion 
of spiritual light and liberty to the masses be followed by abundant suc- 
cess, is the earnest wish of Yours gratefully, A. E. G." 



4^2 APPENDIX E. 

Letter f> om General Edwards. 
To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

It is highly gratifying to the friends of our cause to observe the favorable 
manner in which the " Editor-at-Large " project of the Banner of Light 
is received everywhere. The name of the veteran editor himself is as 
famdiar as a household word in every spiritual family throughout the 
land. The movement was doubtless inaugurated in the higher life. We, 
therefore, look forward with pleasing anticipations to the grand results in 
the enterprise. * * 

I have never known such an interest before in this city to learn the 
heaven-born truths of Spiritualism as now. When the wind blows, and 
the floods sweep away the sands and froths that float down the tide of 
time, the impregnable old Banner wdl stand in the hearts and memories 
of its thousands of readers. 

Yours for the light, J. EDWARDS. 

Washington, D. C, Jan. 31st, 1880. 



SYMPATHY FROM THE GRANITE STATE. 

The Secular Press Bureau correspondence has greatly enlarged 
the author's circle of friends, and thus widened the sphere of his 
usefulness. Among the people who have recently become interested 
in his work is a lady of foreign birth, of rare intelligence and cul- 
ture, who writes from New Hampshire to the Editor-at-Large to 
communicate portions of a deeply interesting spiritual experience. 
In one of her letters she gives a brief history of her family, and 
expresses a strong interest in Dr. Brittan's present work, as will 
appear from the following extract : 

"Prof. Brittan — I am not an American, but a subject of her Gracious 
Majesty, Queen Victoria — a good woman, a model mother, and also, I am 
told, a Spiritualist. My father came from Berwick on the Tweed, and 
my mother was a descendant of a famous Scotch ancestry, Angus Mac- 
Donald, Lord of the Isles — Highlanders. You know their character and 
history — stern and true to the death. My ancestors fought at Bannock- 
burn. When a school girl I visited Sterling Castle, and looked on that 
famous and historic field, but I did not then love and reverence as I now 
do my noble Scotch ancestry. 



APPENDIX E. 463 

" But I would be most unwilling to add to the pressure of duties now de- 
manding your whole time, by trespassing for even a single half hour. 
Let me close this letter by wishing most sincerely that the success of your 
mission will be beyond your present anticipations ; that the angels will 
touch both brain and pen, with deeper and keener power from day to day ; 
that the indeed ' glad tidings ' may reach those now sitting in darkness 
and sorrow, and be welcomed by thousands as the light penetrates their 
spirits, and the blessings of countless hosts fall as refreshing dew on your 
own soul." 



TESTIMONY OF A CLERGYMAN. 

A well-known clergyman residing in Hartford, Conn., who has 
recently embraced Spiritualism, writes an earnest letter to Dr. 
Brittan, involving a cordial indorsement of his argument in reply 
to the most scholarly assault that has recently been made upon 
Spiritualism. We extract the following passage from the rev- 
erend gentleman's letter : * 

" Not till to-day have I seen your reply to Rev. Dr. Hawley, and I 
hasten to congratulate you on so forcible and useful an article. I say 
useful, because it seems to me to be extremely well fitted for a wide popu- 
lar circulation. The common prejudice against Spiritualism as essentially 
irreligious, and the equally common notion that communion through its 
channels with our departed friends is sinful and prohibited by the Bible, 
have long seemed to me to stand foremost among the obstacles to the 
general reception among good people of the truth on the subject. Both 
these points, especially the latter, you have ably met. 

" Dr. H.'s article I have not seen, and so I cannot express an opinion on 
the conclusiveness of yours as a reply on the whole. But I will presume 
it to be so satisfactory as to suggest, as among the good works our 
new Alliance may be expected to do, the publication in tract form of 
both articles side by side. Each party might be given, if desirous of it, 
the privilege of a previous revision, so as to make the discussion as con- 
clusive as possible. " H." 



From the Principals of the Belvidere Seminary, Misses Belle and Lizzie Bush. 
We have read with great pleasure Dr. Brittan's article in the Banner of 



464 APPENDIX E. 

Light. It is beautiful and Christlike in spirit, breathing the purest and 
truest charity, born of Love and Wisdom. God bless him for writing such 
high thoughts, for, like the breath of heaven, they sweeten and refine the 
moral atmosphere of a cold and sordid world." 



A VOICE FROM OVER THE SEA. 
Terrace, New 
England, July 2d, 188 



4 Eslington Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne y ) 



Messrs. Colby and Rich : 

Having read in the issue of the Banner of Light of June 18th Professor 
Brittan's masterly reply to Dr. Hawley, and which has called forth my 
highest encomiums, I write to ask you for your permission to republish it 
in this country in pamphlet form, as I believe it is calculated to do a 
vast amount of good if well circulated by Spiritualists amongst our oppo- 
nents. // is a most crushing reply, and completely turns the tables upon them. 
It is not only just and fair, but appeals to our higher nature by its earnest- 
ness and eloquence. If he can write like that he is indeed the right man 
in the right place, in spite of what carping critics may say, and must be- 
come a power in our movement in bringing its claims to the attention of 
the religious world. 

I care not to make a profit by publishing it, but rather seek to aid in 
spreading the good cause. I shall be glad to know your definite reply as 
early as possible, as there is to be a Church of England Congress to be 
held in this town in August next, and one of the subjects for their discus- 
sion is the relation of Spiritualism to the Church. I would like to have it 
out beforehand, and supply the clergy with our friend's cogent reasonings. 
If necessary to obtain Dr. Brittan's sanction to this scheme, shall be greatly 
obliged if you would kindly obtain it for me, as I do not like to go con- 
trary to his wishes. . . . Yours truly, H. A. K. 



A prominent Spiritualist in London writes us as follows under a recent 
date : " The Editor-at- Large project is a most praiseworthy effort to place 
one of the brightest lights in connection with American Spiritualism before 
the people, and in a way that will enable them to know him better. Prof. 
S. B. Brittan is the one man capable of filling such an important position." 
— Banner of Light. 

In a very interesting letter, which may be found elsewhere, from the 



APPENDIX E. 465 

pen of Edwin D. Babbitt, D. M., of New York City, he calls timely 
attention to the importance of the Editor-at-Large department, saying that 
it should certainly be sustained if we have any public-spiritedness about 
us ; and adds: "Shall we helplessly let the periodical press slander us, 
and pervert what is most dear to us, when we can have an accomplished 
writer like Prof. Brittan to hurl back their assaults and enlighten their 
readers with reference to something higher and better than they yet conceive 
of? It is plausible to say that all Spiritualists should undertake this work, 
and that without pay ; but this is not practicable, for people must earn a 
livelihood, and the cares of daily life absorb the time so that if those 
should be found who are as able as Prof. Brittan, they find it difficult to 
give time and attention to the matter." — Banner of Light. 



THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE. 

Let me congratulate our friend and brother, Prof. Brittan, upon the 
able and successful completion of his first year of missionary work in this 
new field, and to express the hope that the seed thus sown may bring forth 
an hundred fold in the near future ; and as one of the earnest, practical 
laymen in the spiritual vineyard, let me urge upon the thousands of Spir- 
itualists all over the land, who have not as yet contributed, and who have 
found joy and peace in believing, to send according to the blessings they 
have received, a small contribution to this work, for it is through the sec- 
ular press largely that we are to reach the great struggling heart of human- 
ity. I send my $5 for the work. I would it were an hundred times 
more. May this appeal reach a thousand hearts, and bring forth a thou- 
sand responses. This work of Bro. Brittan's must be strengthened, and 
placed upon a firm basis. Eriends, act, and act now. S. B. Nichols. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Jan., 1881. 



Cor. of Dr. J. M. Peebles, from The Banner of Light, Dec. 6, 1879. 

Mr. Brittan as Editor-at-Large. — Sincerely do I hope that wealthy 
Spiritualists will respond quickly and liberally to the " Editor-at-Large 
fund." Dr. Brittan is ''worthy and well qualified" — to use a Masonic 
term — to fill this statior. He is thoughtful, scholarly, and wields a 
Damascus blade. Come to the rescue. There are several rich Spiritual- 
ists right in New York City, that would find sweet peace to their souls by 
handing over to him a thousand dollars each. I pray God and the good 
30 



466 APPENDIX E. 

angels to impress them to so do. Such men as Dr, Brittan, Dr. Bu- 
chanan, and other royal-souled reformers who have devoted their lives to 
the mental, moral, and spiritual development of humanity, should not be 
permitted the least annoyance from financial depression. 



A learned Professor in a foreign University, Master of Arts and 
Member of the Royal Society of Literature, in a private letter, 
recently received, thus refers to Dr. S. B. Brittan : 

" I have seen from time to time in the Banner of Light proposals for 
securing his services as Editor-at-Large. I earnestly hope that means 
will be found to this end. I know of nothing more calculated to serve 
the wide cause of Spiritualism than so enlisting his services. I read all 
that comes from his prolific pen with interest and profit." 



VOICES OF THE PEOPLE. 

POPULAR ESTIMATE OF THE SECULAR PRESS BUREAU. 

IN these days the people are so well informed that they cannot 
be deceived in respect to the general drift of thought and the 
progress of ideas. They readily interpret the spirit of the times, and 
are entitled to be heard on all questions of public interest. The 
use of the Secular Press for the universal diffusion of spiritual light 
and knowledge — now that the plan is fairly understood — is ap- 
proved with great unanimity and enthusiasm. Many of the voices 
are especially significant, since they are known to come from 
personal sources of high character and liberal culture. We may 
not suppress, altogether, the emphatic testimony of these friends, 
since words of encouragement are incentives to further effort in 
the right direction. 

We may not always accept the Latin proverb, " Vox populi vox 
Dei; " but we may rationally question the wisdom of suppressing 



APPENDIX E. 467 

the spontaneous expression of the popular feeling and judgment 
concerning any of the important objects and interests of life, and 
the measures by which it may be proposed to carry the same for- 
ward to a beneficent consummation. In the letters relating to the 
Editor-at-Large, are many earnest words which are both encour- 
aging and instructive. As these are disinterested testimonies — 
quite unlooked for and unsought — which may possibly cheer and 
strengthen others in their warfare against error and injustice, we 
do not feel at liberty to stifle these Voices. Whether they speak to 
encourage the desponding, to strengthen the weak, or to reprove 
the unworthy, let them be heard. The explanatory notes are 
chiefly by the Editor of the Banner of Light. 

W. S. writes from New Orleans to assure us of his deep interest 
in the Editor-at-Large movement. From his earnest letter we 
extract the following : 

" It does not seem possible that among the 3,000,000 Spiritualists in 
the United. States, five hundred cannot be found who would willingly 
subscribe ten dollars each per annum for so meritorious an object. . . . 
I am afraid that the old adage, that ' What's everybody's business is no- 
body's business,' holds good in this case. I think and feel that every 
society or association of Spiritualists throughout the whole land should 
each get up a subscription paper, and appoint a committee whose duty it 
should be to see each and every member and invite — nay, tirge — them to 
subscribe according to their several means and ability ; not only to pay 
this year, but every year as long as they live, if they are able and the 
occasion exists. Better say that the sum of §5,000 per annum is needed." 



A friend writes from Baltimore to a member of the Editor-at- 
Large Committee inclosing his subscription. The following pas- 
sage from his letter is emphatic arfcl rather instructive : 

" I see that you are one of the committee on the Editor-at-Large enter- 
prise. I inclose five dollars for that fund. I am induced to do this by 
reading the attacks which the other papers make upon the project. I see 



468 APPENDIX E. 

so much 'dog in the manger' in the articles written against it, that I con 
elude it is my duty to help it ; and I only regret that I cannot give more 
to sustain the man, gentleman and scholar. Brittan — in his efforts to 
defend our cause — there is no doubt wields his pen more potently than the 
whole host of scribblers, who write little else than ghost stories." 



To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

Your suggestion in several late issues of your paper concerning the em- 
ployment of an Editor-at-Large, on the part of the Spiritualists of this 
country, ought, I think, to strike every true believer in our beautiful 
philosophy as just what is needed at this period ; and if the friends of the 
cause will, so far as able, lend a helping hand, a generous salary can be 
raised, a splendid work begun, and an endless amount of good be accom- 
plished. 

A better man could not be found in all the ranks of Spiritualism for the 
work proposed than Prof. S. B. Brittari. 

Should an arrangement of this kind be entered into, please put my 
name on the list of subscribers, for I do not believe I can appropriate ten 
dollars to a better cause. 

Very respectfully, 

Mrs. Silvia B. Cabell. 

No. 22 Third street, N. E., Washington, D. C. 



To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

I have observed that the suggestion contained in my former letter pub- 
lished in the Banner of Light of Aug. 9th, has received attention from a 
number of your correspondents, and has been made the subject of highly 
appreciative editorial comments. The friends of the proposal, whose let- 
ters have appeared in your paper, all concur at once in their estimate of 
the importance of the measure, and the peculiar adaptation of Dr. S. 
B. Brittan to the place and the duties required of the Editor-at-Large. 
His recent and vigorous handling of Prof. W. Wundt, of the Leipsic Uni- 
versity, together with many other examples, illustrate the breadth of his 
views, the clearness of his statement, and the admirable method of his argu- 
ment ; the ease with which he parries each blow and disarms every assail- 
ant ; and the never-surrender spirit of his long war for unpopular truth — 
all these services, and his constant labors for thirty three years, assure us 



APPENDIX E. 469 

of what he is still capable of doing in the rational defense of that noble 
cause which is the common interest and inheritance of us all. 

But how shall we best promote that interest? Xo matter how complete 
and convincing these replies to the enemies of Spiritualism may be, they 
measurably fail of their object so long as their publication is confined to 
our spiritual papers, which are comparatively few in number, and restricted 
in circulation. They do not reach the larger audience, in whose minds the 
enemy is all the while industriously sowing his tares, and in whose pres- 
ence our vindication should be calmly but boldly made. Let the shot be 
sent straight into the enemy s camp. The plan projected provides for this, 
inasmuch as it would be the special business of the Editor-at-Large to con- 
front the enemies of the Liberal cause on any ground they may choose to 
occupy. 

Yours for the truth, J. B. Loomis. 



LABORS OF MR. S. B. BRITTAX. 
To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

I feel impressed to say a few words to you, not to advise, but simply to 
make a practical suggestion relative to the important labor he has under- 
taken. When I call his labor important I desire to be understood as 
meaning all the language can imply ; for I deem that the work he is to do 
will, or may, result in extending a correct knowledge of our soul-cheering 
faith into circles now darkened by the smoky fogs of theology, to a much 
greater extent than the labors of any other one man — ay, or of any half- 
dozen men. His work is to meet our foes on their own ground ; to go 
behind their entrenchments — so to speak — and deal with them at hand-to- 
hand encounters. 

But to the suggestion I hinted at. It is this : That nothing of Mr. 
Brittan's labors be lost, after it may have done its immediate work of re- 
demption from error ; but that every blow he strikes — and he will strike 
some incisive ones — be made a record of ; that even- untruth which he has 
caught in its stealthy travels, and strangled ; every misrepresentation he 
has shown to be such ; in short, all his work, every step he takes in the 
direction of demolishing error and upbuilding truth, be made a record of, 
and all gathered and published in book form at the close of his first cam- 
paign, or as soon thereafter as may be. Such a compilation of proofs and 
arguments would make one of the best books to be found among spiritual 
literature. 

Xorthfield, Vt. D. T. Averill. 



470 APPENDIX E. 

A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH. 

A lady, writing from Fernandina, Fla., whose subscription to the 
Bureau Fund was recently credited, has an enlightened apprecia- 
tion of the work, as will appear from the following extract from her 
letter under date of June 20th : 

"A thousand thanks for Prof. S. B. Brittan's noble defense of Spiritual- 
ism in his reply to Rev. Dr. Hawley, which I have just perused in the 
Banner of Light. I have never read anything I liked better, or that did 
me more good ; not even his discussion with Dr. Hanson, of Hartford, 
which I read many years ago and enjoyed very much. I thought it the 
best possible thing. I have since tried to obtain a copy, but have never 
been able. I hope the present correspondence will be published in book 
form and widely circulated. 

"Again thanking him with all my heart, and wishing God and the good 
spirits to bless him forever, I remain a sincere friend. A. C. F t " 



ANOTHER DISINTERESTED WITNESS. 

The author of the following letter is well known among the in- 
dependent people who have broken away from the creeds that 
bound them, and now exercise the right to think for themselves. 
He is an accepted and fearless representative of the laboring classes, 
among whom his opinions have weight. His added testimony to 
the importance of the work assigned to the Editor-at-Large, and 
the peculiar fitness of Mr. Brittan for the place, is direct and un- 
qualified by any private aim or personal ambition : 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

I see by the papers and circulars that you have established an Editor- 
at-Large, whose business it is to eliminate from the great volume of spirit 
phenomena the true and reliable philosophy of human possibilities, and 
that you have selected for that most responsible duty Dr. Samuel B. Brit- 
tan, than whom I know of none so capable, with a mind so clear, ana- 
lytical, philosophical, and qualified by nature as well as by many years of 
earnest observation and investigation, for this high position. 

The bushel of chaff has followed the grain of wheat in the whirling 



APPENDIX E. 471 

course of this great spiritual truth, blinding and obfuscating the super- 
ficial observer, filling the moral atmosphere with a denser darkness than 
arose from the old creeds and faiths. It is Dr. Brittan's business to dis- 
tinguish the chaff from the wheat, and to burn up with the unquenchable 
fire of truth and sciento-philosophic demonstrations those shells and fungi 
that accompany all great evolutions. Therefore I predict a new era for 
Spiritualism, which shall establish itself among the late discoveries in the 
invisible forces of Nature. 

I thank you for this correct step. Go on ! Let the light shine. 

G. W. Madox. 

New York, Feb. id, 1880. 



C. W. Kellogg writes us from Brooklyn in indorsement of the Editor- 
at-Large project. In the course of his letter (which unites business with 
words of cheer) he hopes that such Spiritualists as are blessed with the 
means will come forward and insure the success of the enterprise. " I 
cannot say ' Give me neither poverty nor riches.' I would that I were 
able of myself to so firmly seat Prof. Brittan in the position of Editor-at- 
Large that poverty could never displace him. He of all men, to my mind, 
is best suited by intellect, education, temperament, and experience to 
advocate and defend successfully the cause in the secular prints." 



A prominent Spiritualist in Rochester, N. Y., writes : 
" The dignity and ability with which the Banner of Light is conducted 
meet the hearty approbation of the Spiritualists of this city. It pursues the 
even tenor of its way without displaying personal animosities or mixing in 
factional controversies. I rejoice that there is such a spiritual paper. I 
have read the Banner from its first issue, and a hundred times have had 
occasion to speak of the wisdom of its course. We approve the ' Editor- 
at-Large ' arrangement, and are deeply mortified at the unjust attacks on 
Dr. Brittan and the Banner!' 



John L. Moore, writing from Artemisia, Canada, says : 
" The Secular Press Bureau is doing a grand work. I recollect Prof. 
Brittan well, when in the early days of the cause he spoke from the plat- 
form, in that easy, fluent style that made it a pleasure to listen to him. 
Prof. Brittan, being well known as a magazine and newspaper writer, has 



472 APPENDIX E. 

opportunities of reaching the press which no other writer in the Spiritual- 
istic ranks has in the same degree." 



M. Larkin, Downington, Pa., writes: 

" In selecting S. B. Brittan for ' Editor-at-Large,' I cannot see how a 
wiser choice could have been made. I feel under lasting obligations to 
him and Charles Partridge for having given us, in the Spiritual Telegraph, 
the grandest truths ever made known to mortals. It was their paper that 
first drew my attention to Spiritualism — a subject I would not have re- 
mained ignorant of for all the wealth in our Keystone State." 



B. F. Black iston, of Dover, Del., informs us in the course of a recent 
business letter, that the communications by Prof. S. B. Brittan which we 
have from time to time copied from the secular journals, and which arti- 
cles have aimed to reply to objections made against Spiritualism, its teach- 
ings and its media, have caused much interest in the subject in that place, 
and bid fair to produce correspondingly good results for the cause. 



Extract from Published Correspondence of Edwin D. Babbitt, D.M., 
from " The Banner of Lights Dec. 27. 

The suggestion of such a man as Prof. S. B. Brittan for the position is 
one of the best ever made. . . . The type of his mind is both histor- 
ical and philosophical, his style graceful, and his sarcasm against evil, 
when his righteous indignation is aroused, is very scathing. He has been 
in the midst of wars and controversies in this divine cause for so many 
years that it has made him quick to repel assaults from the enemy, and 
yet his kindness and balance of mind render him courteous and fair in his 
language. . . . Being one of our representative men, and fairly 
known even in the secular world for his literary ability, he would be able 
to gain admittance to many papers which would otherwise be closed 
against him. Men of financial power, men of grand souls, will you let 
the opportunity pass ? Then will Heaven let the opportunity of blessing 
your own souls and the souls of others pass away also. 



A lady of profound religious convictions, of rare intelligence, 
and a most efficient member of the Episcopal Church, who resides 



APPENDIX E. 473 

in Newark, N. J., sends ten dollars to the Editor-at-Large. We 
extract the following from her excellent letter : 

"lam very much interested that all mankind may become more fully 
acquainted with our Father in heaven. If this is one of the means that 
he would u-e to bring them in closer communion with himself — by 
bringing the spiritual world nearer to us — and he would use you as a 
medium in calling the attention of many to this mode of manifesting him- 
self, I shall be glad that I have added my mite." 



HEAR ! 

The editor of the Banner of Light says, " Prof. "Wundt is ' unhorsed ' 
by Prof. Brittan." The man with "the sword of the spirit " not only 
seems to have broken the lance of the scientific assailant, but to have un- 
settled the very ground beneath his feet. Wundt being hors de combat, 
we predict that, in his next tilt at the truth, he wotft ride so boldly to the 
front without first measuring the defensive arm that strikes for Spiritual- 
ism. — Exchange. 



THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE PROPOSITION. 
To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

The suggestion that a spiritual " Editor-at-Large " be engaged to do 
certain needed labor among the secular papers, I heartily approve. Dr. 
S. B. Brittan possesses the requisite literary ability and scientific knowl- 
edge to fill the responsible position, and has had great experience in all 
the phases of the spiritual phenomena. If Dr. Brittan is engaged as such 
editor, as soon as I am notified I will forward five dollars to aid the un- 
dertaking, which I regard of much importance. 

Yours truly, William Luther. 

19 Alexander st., Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 6, 1S79. 



Oakfield, Wis. — Isaac Orvis writes : " I have been much pleased in 
perusing Dr. S. B. Brittan's criticism on Prof. Wundt's letter to Prof. 
Ulrici, in a recent Banner. Is it not strange that scientists should claim 
for Spiritualism what the most unscientific Spiritualist never claimed for 
it, namely, the abrogation of natural law in the movement of ponderable 
bodies by spirit-force? This manifestation is perfectly in accordance with 



474 APPENDIX E. 

the law of gravity, but superior to it for the time being ; otherwise Prof. 
Wundt could never have lifted one of the smallest specimens in his cabinet. 
Go on, Bro. Brittan — pull up the stakes, tear down the landmarks of false 
philosophy, bigotry and superstition, and let the world have the truth in a 
clearer light. " 



New York, March 26th, 1881. 
Messrs. Colby & Rich : 

Enclosed find my check, which you will please apply to the Editor-at- 
Large Fund. Prof. S. B. Brittan is an able champion of Spiritualism. 
Let me herein say, that, to my mind, this is the most complete and fertile 
method of cultivating the growth of this magnificent truth. It reaches 
millions of minds. I deem it one of the broadest and grandest move- 
ments since the birth of Spiritualism. Respectfully, 

J. A. Cazino. 



Christian, Texas. — Mrs. S. Crawford sends $5 for the Editor-at-Large 
Fund (which sum has been previously acknowledged), and says : " Being a 
practical Spiritualist and subscriber to your excellent paper, I desire to 
present my small mite in aid of the interests of truth. I think Bro. S. B. 
Brittan is a great and noble champion in the cause of progress and eternal 
justice." 



" T. K. Austin," of New York City, writes us on the subject of 
the Editor-at-Large movement under a recent date and in the fol- 
lowing forcible manner : 

"The proposition to institute a commission as ' Editor-at-Large ' — as 
announced in the Banner of Light — strikes me as a matter of serious im- 
portance and of timely consideration, and it engages my most cordial 
sympathy and approval ; especially in view of the exalted character of the 
proposed incumbent of that office, Prof. S. B. Brittan. 

" It has been my highly valued privilege to enjoy a close acquaintance 
with Dr. Brittan, consequently some opportunity has been afforded me for 
an opinion in the matter. And it occurs as one of the very few occasions 
of my life when I would willingly divest myself of a natural diffidence and 
disrelish for publicity, Could I thereby obtain a sufficiently potent influ- 
ence to induce my brother Spiritualists to seize the opportunity with 
avidity while yet it is theirs to grasp. 



APPENDIX E. 475 

" Who will take up the gauntlet of the opposition ? To whom shall we 
look for a refutation of the charges against Spiritualism? It seems to this 
writer that if any one can ' fill the bill,' the author of ' Man and His Rela- 
tions' is that one. His unswerving fidelity to principle, his rich endow- 
ment, with superior natural abilities, his ripe scholarship, the 'sttaviter in 
modo et fortiter in re ' which governs him throughout, both mentally and 
morally — all these, combined with a natural dignity and refinement of the 
best type, and developed by lifelong culture, constitute a character rare 
if not unique, and especially fitted to the delicate, discriminating, yet 
unflinching duty involved in the office of Editor-at-Large as I under- 
stand it." 



We are in receipt of the following letter from a lady who does 
not profess to believe in Spiritualism, and whose communication is 
another incidental evidence that Prof. Brittan's reputation as a 
writer is not confined to the spiritual public : 
To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

I am not a Spiritualist, for, while I do not doubt that the phenomena 
occur, I am not yet satisfied of their spiritual origin ; but I will gladly 
contribute ten dollars towards carrying out your suggestion in regard to 
Dr. S. B. Brittan of this city. He is, perhaps, the best fitted for such a 
position of any man in the country. Hoping you may succeed in effect- 
ing an arrangement with him very soon, and that tne necessary amount of 
money may be raised before the new year begins, I am, 

Very respectfully, Mrs. E. Bruce. 

New York, Oct. 12th, 1879. 



To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

Inclosed please find the " widow's mite " again for the Brittan Fund. 
It is most strange that every reader of the Banner of Light cannot plainly 
see that the Editor-at-Large movement is the grandest plan ever adopted 
for the defense of our cause ; for by it the skeptical world will soon see 
and know the true soul and body of much-abused Spiritualism. Ever the 
trouble has been to get the facts before the people in the papers in which 
the abuse has appeared, and in a manner to insure that they will be read ; 
and to my mind Dr. S. B. Brittan has proved himself to be just the man 
to command respect from the press and the people, and thus compass the 
ends sought. His sound logic, high culture, and his wise balance of 



476 APPENDIX E. 

temper, force me to believe, almost, that he was " raised up " for this very 
purpose. H. Hayes. 

Muir, Mich. 



THE CRUSADE AGAINST ISRAEL. 

Dr. S. B. Brittan's vindication of the Jews has been published in 
pamphlet form at the request of many persons, as will be perceived 
by reference to our advertising columns. In his defense of this 
people he has administered a severe but wholesome reproof to cer- 
tain Christians who need reformation. Indeed, for forty years no 
form of political iniquity, religious ostracism, or social injustice 
among men has escaped his searching observation. Nor have the 
enemies of freedom and the equal rights of all men found shield or 
shelter from deserved chastisement at his hands. If he is fearless 
and unsparing in his handling of the enemies of truth and justice, 
his severity in controversy never degenerates into harshness. Per- 
sonal resentment and acrimonious feeling seldom or never obscure 
the principles for which he contends. While smarting under the 
lash of his criticism, not a few have been made to feel the justice 
of their punishment.* 

A gentleman at Muir, Ionia County, Mich., in a letter received 
some days since, in referring to our special correspondent says: 

" I have pe used many articles from S. B. Brittan, my stranger friend 
and brother, but none with so much interest and pleasure as the ' Plea for 
the Jews ' in a late number of the Banner of Light. ... I am only a 
citizen, loving all the freedom and justice the Lord — the true God — has 
granted us. 

" Church regalia admitted free of duty is a new revealment to me, and is 
another proof that our government is not secular. He has done up the 
clergy without gloves, and we want some similar pen to write things 
three hundred and sixty-five days in each year. ... I shall long 
remember the noble reformer who lives for the right under all circum- 
stances. Heaven and the good angels guide him that he may not spare 
those who, for opinion's sake, would burn us all if they could. I hope 
he may yet be installed ' Editor-at-Large.' " — Banner of Light. 



APPENDIX E. 477 



VIEWS OF THE PRESS. 



DR. BRITTAN AND THE TIMES. 

ON our fifth page will be found a masterly argument and a tren- 
chant and searching analysis — both bearing on the ignorant 
criticisms of the editor of the New York Tii7ies as leveled at Spirit- 
ualism and its work in our day and generation. The Editor-at -Large 
speaks both from the head and the heart in this reply, and we are 
sure our readers will agree with us that the tone of each is sound, 
trustworthy, and calculated to be of " good cheer '■' to every friend 
of the Modern Dispensation. The editor of the Hartford (Ct.) 
Daily Times — to the columns of which paper [for Sept. 8th] we 
are indebted for this able rejoinder on the part of Dr. B. — thus 
calls the attention of his readers to the matter in hand : 

"Dr. Brittan's reply to the editorial position of the New York Times, 
concerning Dr. Beard and his assumptions in relation to clairvoyance, as 
a proved reality, will be found to be as keen and effective as it is logical 
and courteous. The Times, not liking the attitude in which it found it- 
self left by Dr. Brittan, refused to publish his reply."— Banner of Light. 



From the Banner of Light of Aug. 23 and Sept. 13, 1849. 

We have hinted at the importance of the Spiritualists of the United 
States employing Professor S. B. Brittan, of New York, as an " Editor- 
at- Large," to write for the secular press in defense of Spiritualism. Pro- 
fessor Brittan possesses the requisite capacity for such an undertaking in a 
degree superior to any other individual in our ranks, and could do much and 
valuable work for the cause by meeting the frequent assaults of our enemies 
on their own ground, and also through their channels of communication. 
There is no reason why the Spiritualists should not employ an agent to 
perform such services just as any theological body may engage a missionary 
to look after zVj interests among the people. A strong man is needed to 



478 APPENDIX E. 

smite with his truth-revealing pen, and on their own ground, those journal- 
istic Philistines, and either show up the fallacies indulged in by these 
papers or their representatives, and in the very columns in which such 
fallacies appear — or, failing of getting a hearing for his articles forwarded 
freely 'in reply, to at least demonstrate to lovers of fair play everywhere 
the want of a proper sentiment of common justice in the sanctums of the 
daily or weekly issues refusing to print his communications. 

Why should not the Spiritualists of the United States perceive the truth 
of what we affirm? and, perceiving, why should they not further employ at 
least one man at a living salary to watch the daily and weekly secular 
papers, detect such "snap-judgment" articles as may from time to time 
appear, and reply to them in a manner that shall defend the honor of the 
cause before the world ? We have in the main asked this question in sev- 
eral previous issues, and have given publicity to divers letters from cor- 
respondents bearing on the project, and all agreeing that the nomination of 
Professor S. B. Brittan of New York, to fill the post of Spiritualist Editor- 
at-Large, was the best that could be made ; and we at present desire to 
emphasize all we have before said regarding the practicability of the crea- 
tion of the office, and the peculiar fitness of Professor Brittan to fill it after 
it has been so created. It is our opinion that he could do most effective 
work in advocating the claims of the Spiritual Dispensation, and could ere 
long — when the truly classical character of his writings came to be under- 
stood — either command equal space in the secular papers as that accord- 
ed to the enemies of Spiritualism, or could at least close these popular 
channels of communication against those who now so fearlessly (because 
they do not expect to be criticised) misrepresent the facts of Spiritualism, 
disfigure its revealments, and belie its defenders. 

SECULAR PRESS BUREAU. 
From the Two Worlds. 

" It is, doubtless, largely owing to the labors of Dr. Brittan in this 
capacity, for which he possesses distinguished qualifications, that the tone 
of the press in general has greatly altered of late toward Spiritualism ; 
and we venture to opine that our dignified neighbor, the New York Times, 
will not be in haste to make another exhibit of its conspicuous want of 
information and of correct thinking on the topics it has so confidently 
essayed to discuss. 

" In this connection it is not out of place to invite the attention of our 
readers to that department of effort in behalf of spiritual enlightenment, 
over which our able and scholarly co-laborer, Dr. Brittan, presides. 



APPENDIX E. 479 

And we do this simply from a sense of duty, and without the slightest hint 
from him that such a service on our part would be agreeable. We have no 
question that the field of labor in which he is engaged was marked out for 
him by higher intelligences, nor that he is most worthily and efficiently 
performing the work to which he has been assigned. It seems but right, 
then, that those who are interested in the advancement of the truth, and 
have been gifted with the capacity for accumulating means, should con- 
tribute the funds necessary to enable him to devote his best energies to 
the work. 

" We have reason to believe that his needs for this work thus far have not 
been over-well supplied, and we gladly accede to the suggestion of a valued 
correspondent, in offering to receive and faithfully transmit any contribu- 
tions for the Secular Press Bureau that may be entrusted to our care." 



The American Editor-at-L\rge, Prof. Brittan, one of the ablest 
and most experienced writers on Spiritualism, is wisely retained by the 
Spiritualists of America, to write- attractive and instructive articles on 
Spiritualism in the leading newspapers of the country. By this means 
excellent articles on our cause are perused by thousands of intelligent 
readers, who would otherwise remain in ignorance of teachings thus given. 
— Medium and Daybreak, London, Eng. 



Our esteemed contemporary, the Harbinger of Light, published 
in far-off Melbourne, Australia, has expressed the whole sum and 
substance of the plan of the Secular Press Bureau in the following 
paragraph, which we recommend to the attention of all our readers : 

" We are glad to observe from the Banner of Light that the ' Editor- at- 
Large ' project is succeeding, and that Prof. S. B. Brittan has entered upon 
his duties in this direction. The principal duty of this official is to reply 
to letters and articles against Spiritualism which appear in the secular 
papers, and to contribute, to such papers as will publish them, articles on 
Spiritualism. A better man for this duty than the veteran Spiritualist and 
journalist referred to could scarcely be found." 



OPENING THE GATES. 



The Gate City, a live daily paper published at Keokuk, Iowa, recently 
contained an article against Mr. Kiddle in his relations to Spiritualism, in 



4^0 APPENDIX E. 

which this new and worthy disciple was severely assailed. The same paper, 
in its issue of the 28th ultimo, contains a polite but analytical and search- 
ing review of the same by Prof. Brittan, accompanied by an apologetic 
statement in which the editor of that paper explains the grounds on which 
he based his former strictures, and from which we extract the follow- 
ing : 

" We publish a bright and spirited letter from Dr. Brittan of New York, 
in reply to a paragraph of ours about Mr. Henry Kiddle. We have 
neither space nor disposition to discuss Spiritualism." . . . 

The review by the Editor-at-Large, entitled " Spiritualism and its 
Critics," follows the editor's introduction of his new correspondent, in 
the first editorial column, in large type, and leaded. It gives us pleasure 
to record the fact as a credit to The Gate City, whose editor thus opens 
another gate to admit Mr. Brittan and Spiritualism into the wide field of 
journalism. — Banner of Light. 



POPULAR OPINION. 
A Connecticut correspondent, who has been a constant patron 
of the Popular Science Monthly since the date of its first issue, 
writes thus respecting- that journal, and of Dr. Brittan's review of 
Prof ssor Wundt's letter to Ulrici which appeared in our issue of 
Oct. 4th : 

" I have just finished the perusal of Dr. Brittan's review of Professor 
Wundt's assailment of Spiritualism, and congratulate him on the posses- 
sion of unimpaired faculties and a very fortunate refutation of the points 
considered strong by the Leipsic Professor. It seems to me very strange 
that the Popular Science Monthly takes the position it has all along against 
Spiritualism, when, by its very name and the assertion of its purposes, it 
should be thorough in its investigation of all facts relating to the subject. 
I have taken that magazine ever since its first publication, and should 
vote for a new editor, had I the chance — one who would be impartial and 
not prejudge cases before they are tried, as Youmans and his clique have 
done." 

The reader will have noticed that Prof. Youmans often copies a 
large part of the contents of his Monthly from the foreign scientific 
journals, and not always with the discrimination which indicates 



APPENDIX E. 48 I 

that the Editor is abreast with the leading men of the times. He 
has copied Prof. Wundt's letter against Spiritualism with even- in- 
dication of cordial approval. Now, why should he not also copy 
Dr. Brittan's reply, that his readers may have both sides of the 
question as presented by two scientific philosophers ? To assume 
that Brittan's answer is not equally worthy of public attention is a 
hollow assumption which will not be accepted by any one compe- 
tent to form an intelligent opinion. So long as the spiritual side 
of the question is fairly represented by a man whose metaphysical 
research and ability appear to be as broad and comprehensive as 
the philosophy of the average University professor, the assumption 
that all the science is opposed to Spiritualism is irreconcilable with 
reason and the facts. In the name of science the public demand 
that the journal, ostensibly established in its interest, shall give both 
sides a candid hearing. If such an exhibition of fidelity to truth 
and justice is too much for the public to expect, the Editor should 
at least have the manliness to shut out all further ex parte disqui- 
sitions on a subject which he has only meddled with to obscure. 
If unwilling to either hear both sides or exclude both, the alterna- 
tive remains of continuing his own beggarly course, which will 
neither increase his circulation nor improve a doubtful reputation 
for intelligence and fair dealing. — Banner of Light. 



THE ANSWER TO ANDOVER. 

On our first page will be found S. B. Brittan's admirable reply 
to the animadversions urged by Prof. Austin Phelps, D.D., against 
the philosophy and phenomena of Spiritualism. 

The editor of the Merrimac Valley Visitor has indeed set an ex- 
ample of manly fairness and unimpeachable justice which strongly 
illustrates the improved tone of the Press, and is worthy of all imi- 
tation. Regarding Spiritualism as a subject of such importance as 
3i 



482 APPENDIX E. 

to merit a candid and fearless consideration of its claims, he pre- 
sents to his readers one of the most elaborate papers from the pen 
of the Editor-at-Large, filling nearly eight columns in that journal. 
Nor does he hesitate to express his estimate of its quality. The 
answer to Prof. Austin Phelps, D.D., of the Andover Theological 
Seminary, and indirectly to the Orthodox clergy of New England, 
is one that may furnish them much food for reflection. Andover's 
assault upon Spiritualism was published in the Congregationalist. 
The editor of the Visitor informs his readers of this fact, and in 
further reference to the subject he says : 

"An answer to Prof. Phelps was first sent to that paper (Congregation- 
alist), but as religious papers have less liberality and a lower standard of 
justice than the secular press, it was rejected. . . . We give place to 
the reply to the Andover Professor. . . . All interested in Spiritual- 
ism will be pleased with this paper. ... It deals with the subject with 
a strong and fearless hand. ... It is written by a learned gentle- 
man who has given years to the study of Spiritual Philosophy, and is 
known by his writings and addresses upon that subject in every State of 
this Union, if not in every civilized nation on the globe. . . . We 
know it will interest thousands of people in this country who are not 
habitual readers of the Visitor" 

The attention of those who have accustomed themselves to think 
that Dr. Brittan's labors as Editor-at-Large are not productive of 
adequate results, is respectively called to the conclusiveness of this 
reply, and the signal advantage gained for the cause by its publica- 
tion in a paper printed in the immediate vicinity of Professor 
Phelps' field of labor. — Banner of Light. 



PROGRESS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



" • The agitation of thought ' which ' is the beginning of wisdom,' 
reached Saratoga early in the present year. A great wave from 
the ' river of life' appears to have passed over the town, and the 
good people have become deeply interested in Spiritualism. The 



APPENDIX E. 483 

subject had been discussed for some time in the local papers, and 
Rev. Bostwick Hawley, D.D., had represented the enemies of 
Spiritualism in a lengthy and elaborate paper which appeared in 
the Saratoga Eagle. The doctor's display of classical and theo- 
logical learning was truly remarkable, and apparently intended to 
stupefy and silence the Spiritualists ; but it had no such effect. 
On the contrary, it was but a bugle-blast which summoned the 
champion of the Secular Press Bureau to the field and the battle. 
Our readers will perceive, by reference to our first page, how 
thoroughly in earnest was the champion of Spiritualism, and how 
effectually he overthrew the churchial Goliah. 

"Truly the messenger from the spirit-world stepped in when the 
tide of public interest was rising ; the waters were deeply moved 
by his presence ; a new fountain was opened — the ' well of water 
springing up into everlasting life.' The people are bound to 
patronize ' the new spring.' Already the spiritually lame give 
promise of going alone at an early day, the mourners rejoice, and 
the blind begin to see. Honor to the ' Editor-at-Large ' for his 
goo'd work in this regard, and honor also to the editor of the Sara- 
toga Eagle, who displays his manly independence, even-handed 
justice and also his eminent good sense in the following editorial 
announcement : 

'"Prof. Brittan's Defense of Spiritualism. — It gives us unfeigned 
pleasure to announce that we shall be able to present to our readers next 
week an extended and elaborate reply to Dr. Bostwick Hawley's able 
article in the Eagle of Jan. 8th, entitled, "Oscillations of Human Opin- 
ion." Perhaps few, if any, orthodox thinkers, and certainly none in this 
locality, have more learnedly and logically assaulted the doctrines of 
modern Spiritualism than Dr. Hawley. By the cumulative evidence of 
sacred and profane history, together with painstaking ratiocination, Dr. 
Hawley has sought to prove that professed mediums are either dupes or 
deceivers ; that Spiritualism, so called, is full of sophistry ; that its teach- 
ings are mischievous in the extreme, and that the phenomena upon which 



484 APPENDIX E. 

it is based are accountable upon other theories than that of communica- 
tion with disembodied spirits. 

" ' The response is from the gifted pen of Prof. S. B. Brittan,of New York, 
who is reputed to be one of the very ablest exponents of the spiritualistic 
philosophy in the United States. We understand that the answer to Dr 
Hawley's paper is designed to be masterly, exhaustive and conclusive 
and that the several objections to Spiritualism raised by our local con 
tributor will be fairly, fully and squarely met. But this point must bede 
cided by the reader rather than by the claims of the author or his friends, 
At any rate, the arguments of gentlemen of the caliber and character of 
Dr. Hawley and Prof. Brittan relative to this phase of belief will dignify 
a discussion which just now enjoys large local prominence, both in the 
village papers and among our people.' 

" In the issue containing Dr. Brittan's article, the Editor of the 
Eagle gives further expression to his views in the following para- 
graph : 

" ' The contribution on the subject of Spiritualism, from the pen of Prof. 
S. B. Brittan, occupies a large space in this issue ; but the ability, vigor 
and interest of the production justify the prominence we have accorded it. 
Whether Spiritualism is a true or a false philosophy, or a mixture of truth 
and error, a perusal of this paper cannot but give a more enlightened 
conception of its scope, character and pretensions. Although occupying 
antagonistic positions, Prof. Brittan and Dr. Hawley both seek to fortify 
their arguments by liberal quotations from the Bible. Without undertak- 
ing to review this lengthy and labored article, we commend it, as we did 
Dr. Hawley's paper, to the painstaking perusal and thoughtful delibera- 
tion of every intelligent reader.'" 



Dr. Brittan is doing valuable work which is not sufficiently appreciated in 
the Secular Press Bureau. It is no small benefit to have at hand a man of 
his caliber, versatile power and varied information, whose pen is devoted 
to exposing mistakes and answering objections in the secular press. A 
letter of his on Dr. Beard as a " Psychological Expert," addressed to the 
New York Times, is excellent ; and it is but a sample of many that find 
their way into the public press. — Psychological Review (London, Eng.) for 
November, 1 88 1. 



APPENDIX E. 485 

THE DELAWARE VALLEY ADVANCE. 

The editor of the Delaware Valley (Pa.) Advance, thought he 
saw a chance, too, to join the "Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart" 
combination ; but he has, it seems, been led, after the first dash, 
to retire most confusedly to cover — the cause of his precipitate re- 
treat being an unexpected forward movement on the part of Prof. 
S. B. Brittan. Prof. B., having received information from parties 
resident in the vicinity, at once replied to the Advance manager, 
and not only gained admission to the columns of that paper, but 
also called out an editorial from that individual, wherein he stated 
that he had " no criticisms to make," and did not want " a contro- 
versy" with Dr. Brittan ; he nevertheless tried to send his readers 
off on a false scent by saying that the Professor had " advanced 
no arguments in support of the doctrine of the people he defends,'' 
when he (the editor) knew very well that the object of the latter 
was not to discuss the doctrines of Spiritualism, but to meet his 
charges, and to rebuke the bigoted spirit of their author. Desirous 
of covering his ignominous retreat, the Advance editor, like the 
ostrich when pursued, forced his little head into the sand, leaving 
his more ponderous body in plain view. His appeal to the com- 
munity, to devise means to limit the rights of Spiritualists, was 
atrocious, and deserved the earnest protest and unqualified condem- 
nation to which Professor Brittan has given expression. 

Ba n n er of L igh t. 

THE CHANGED TONE. 

Some months since, Rev. Prof. Austin Phelps, D.D., contributed 
an article to the Congregationalist, in which he characterized 
Spiritualism as "a putrescent heap." In his treatment of its 
principles and claims he made no effort to disguise his supreme 
contempt of the whole subject, and generally of its disciples. That 
article was reviewed at length by the Editor-at-Large in his Secu- 
lar Press Correspondence. The reply was a searching analysis 



486 APPENDIX E. 

and complete refutation of the Andover Professor's dogmatic as- 
sumptions ; at the same time it was a timely and salutary caution 
to all similar offenders against the dignity of truth and the propri- 
eties of religious controversy. How far Dr. Brittan's polite but 
scathing review may have been influential in modifying the offen- 
sive tone of the " Sacred Rhetoric " illustrated at Andover, we may 
not absolutely determine ; but some power has accomplished a 
most decided reformation or change of opinion in Rev. Dr. Phelps' 
mind as to the importance of questions involved in the subject, as 
was to be seen in the article we republished from a more recent 
number of the Congregaiionalist a short time since, and which is 
alluded to as follows in the New York Tribune of the 24th ultimo : 

"The Rev. Dr. Austin Phelps, professor emeritus of Sacred Rhetoric 
at Andover Theological Seminary, believes that the pulpit ought not to 
ignore Spiritualism. In an article in the Congregaiionalist he says : 
' When people find their inherited faith in miracles and in inspiration 
muddled by the modern necromantic marvels, it is natural, it is reason- 
able that they should ask : " What do these things mean ? " And so long 
as popular science says never a word, who shall give to the people the 
necessary satisfaction, if the pulpit does not? Has not this thing been 
let alone long enough? Is it not time that the clergy should have opin- 
ions acbout it which, as theologians, they are willing to be responsible for, 
and opinions which shall commend themselves to the good sense and the 
biblical faith of their hearers? It can never be beneath the dignity of 
the pulpit to answer any inquiries, touching religious faith, which an 
honest and sensible people are moved to ask.'" 

It is with evident satisfaction that we record the important fact 
that Professor Phelps has at last reached the rational conclusion 
that the clergy have "long enough " neglected their obvious duty 
in respect to Spiritualism. He reminds them in plain terms that 
they " should have opinions about it which, as theologians, they are 
willing to be responsible for." This is sensible, and substantially 
what the advocates of Spiritualism have been trying to impress 
upon them for the last thirty years. We are pleased to learn that 



APPENDIX E. 487 

the dense fog which so long clouded the theological mind is being 
dissipated. Andover begins to see the subject in a better light. 
We hope the clergy generally will follow the example and advice 
of Professor Phelps ; step down from the church steeple-chase 
stilts to the level of those " honest and sensible people " who de- 
mand light and are waiting to receive instruction. 

Banner of Light. 
THE SECULAR PRESS BUREAU. 

The reader will find a trenchant article from Prof. S. B. Brittan, 
in and with which he, as chairman of the new Bureau to be con- 
ducted under the auspices of the American Spiritualist Alliance, of 
New York City, for another year, moves to the front in excellent 
order, and with, we think, conclusive results. 

It ought to give a thrill of pride to any one who loves the Spirit- 
ualist cause inherently, and for itself, to peruse such articles as this 
one by Prof. Brittan, and to feel that such talented men as himself 
and others are now united to continue the work of refuting the 
libelous attacks on Spiritualism, placing its defense firmly upon 
moral and philosophical grounds, in terms incapable of being mis- 
understood. We have been made glad at seeing that this Bureau 
has wrought much and good work toward answering the various ob- 
jections which have been published by secular newspapers regarding 
the Spiritual Phenomena, and their teachings, and trust that under 
the new arrangement it may add to its already abundant laurels. 

In order to do so— with strict fair-dealing toward the gentlemen 
who propose to utilize their valuable powers in the work above 
named — material support, by way of pecuniary subscriptions, is 
necessarv. The purpose is eminently worthy the attention of the 
friends of Spiritualism everywhere. Donations to the Bureau 
Fund, forwarded to this office, will be promptly acknowledged and 
placed to the credit of the Bureau Committee, subject to its order. 

Banner of Light. 



APPENDIX F. 



VOICES FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

THE PRESS AND THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE. 



THE following extracts are from a communication given at 
the Banner Free Circle Room, Nov. 22, 1880. The Spirit- 
Author claimed to be the late Henry J. Raymond, founder of the 
New York Daily Times : 

" I would refer to the Editor-at-Large Project, which has been before 
the public during the last year. Many months ago, certain spirits who 
have the interests of humanity ever before them, organized themselves 
into a band for the further advancement of Spiritualism on earth, and to 
perform more effective labor in its behalf. It had long been apparent 
that the truths of Spiritualism reach the masses only in a diluted and dis- 
torted form, under the misrepresentations frequently given to the subject 
through the columns of many theological and secular publications. Vior 
lent and scurrilous attacks upon Spiritualism and its followers are made 
with impunity by writers and speakers who know nothing of the subject 
they condemn, but whose only object is to cast ridicule and odium upon 
our cause. This is done, from time to time, in the pulpits, from the ros- 
trum, and in the columns of daily and weekly newspapers ; also in those 
periodicals and magazines where one has a right to look for truthful state- 
ments and scientific asseverations ; while we have not had one pen to 
take up these false representations of Spiritualism and refute them by the 
statement of honest facts, and to demand a hearing from our side in the 
columns of these same publications. 

Some time ago, the question was mooted of employing some able, com- 

488 



APPENDIX F. 489 

petent Spiritualist to keep himself informed concerning the attitude of the 
religious and secular press of the country towards Spiritualism, and to hold 
himself in readiness at all times to wield his pen in behalf of truth, by- 
refuting the false representations of our opponents concerning our cause, 
and setting its true merits before the public in their proper light. For 
this purpose, and for this only, was the Editor-at-Large office created, 
which Prof. S. B. Brittan, of New York city, was called upon to fill, en- 
tirely independent of the Spiritual press, and I dare to say that he has 
filled the position assigned him in a manner highly creditable to himself 
and to the Spiritual cause. Those people who are unbiased and candid, 
who are familiar with the career and labors of Prof. Brittan during the last 
thirty years in the fields of Spiritualism, will not question his ability to 
fill this office. Let those self-opinionated, prejudiced people who appre- 
ciate the ideas of others only when they harmonize with their own, cavil 
as they will. 

Those who look only upon the surface of things may imagine this is a 
pleasant position to fill and an easy labor to perform ; but you have no 
idea of the stupendous task it is to read up most of the publications of 
the day, and to keep watch over the columns of the press of this country, 
in order to be in readiness to refute charges made against Spiritualism and 
its followers, and send the arrow of Truth home to the heart of Error, by 
revealing to the outside world the true status of this mighty philosophy, 
which numbers among its followers millions of respectable people. I ven- 
ture to say, not one of our writers or lecturers would care to undertake 
this work, unaided and alone, notwithstanding the cries which have been 
raised to the contrary, while indeed many of the publications demanding 
the attention of such an officer are unread and unheeded by these same 
busy writers and speakers. 

The office of Editor-at-Large was discussed and planned in the Spirit- 
ual World long before a committee of mortals was formed to further its 
advancement, and I affirm that its mission is an important one. It takes 
no work from the hands of any one ; there is labor enough for all to per- 
form ; it does not set one man over all Spiritualists as their censor, or 
otherwise limit the freedom of individual thought and opinion. There 
is much opposition and some ill-will among Spiritualists concerning this 
office, owing to a misunderstanding of its mission. It is not for the ex- 
pression of individual idiosyncrasies, but it is designed to represent clearly 
the truths of Spiritualism to humanity ; its field of usefulness is out in 
the theological and secular world, where bigotry and error hold sway, and 
it works for the material interest of no Spiritualist and no spiritual jour- 



490 APPENDIX F. 

nal under the sun. That the office of Editor-at- Large was created in 
the interest of the publishers of the Banner of Light, those who have 
watched the course of those gentlemen, and that of their paper during 
the last twenty years, do not need my voice in refutation of such an as- 
sertion. 

The only articles from the pen of the Editor-at-Large, written in the 
interests of that office which are published in the columns of the Banner, 
are such as — having been respectfully declined by those publications for 
which they were penned — would reach the public in no other way, and 
such as the Spiritual World have deemed it important to republish in its 
columns for the instruction and benefit of its readers. But I need not 
enlarge. All that I can say on this important subject has been well and 
aptly said by Judge Nelson Cross, in a recent issue of the Banner of Light. 
His opinion I indorse, in toto. 

Prof. Brittan, in his capacity of Editor-at-Large, has written many arti- 
cles, and replied to many criticisms. We are so well satisfied with the 
result of this year's doings that we desire to extend the experiment another 
year, and we call upon all our friends who favor this work to assist us in its 
advancement by contributing whatever sums of money they can afford to 
the Editor-at-Large fund. As there are those who look upon this project 
with disfavor, they are not called upon to contribute one penny for its 
support ; and I may say that, while our friends who have contributed to 
this work, and who feel its importance, are satisfied with its expenditure 
of their money, with the result of the labors performed by the Editor-at- 
Large, we consider it no concern of those who look upon it sneeringly, 
whether or not the result is as favorable as was expected. 

We have given this method of employing one pen and one mind in the 
field of secularism a trial, and we are satisfied with the result. Error and 
opposition have been rebuked ; the truths and beauties of our Spiritual 
Philosophy clearly placed before the eyes of thousands who would have 
met them in no other way and through no other channel, and I am pleased 
to believe that the labor is well worth the expense and trouble it has cost." 

FROM THE SPIRIT OF THE LATE DR. H. F. GARDNER, OF BOSTON. 

" I observe that there is a project started to raise a fund to support an 
Editor-at-Large, who will undertake to defend Spiritualism and other 
liberal views. This is one of the most important movements of the age. 
The secular press is teeming with petty slurs and misrepresentations of 
Spiritualism and its friends. Spiritualists now have become such a body in 
the United States that the time has arrived to make themselves heard and 



APPENDIX F. 



49 J 



felt among the people. In order to do this they must have one well versed 
in liberal ideas, fully competent to reply to whatever comes, and who will 
use his time and talents in defense of our philosophy and in illustration of 
reformatory measures. Certainly to do this we need a fund to begin with, 
because it will take the whole time and strength of such a person to be 
devoted to this purpose. I do hope that the Spiritualists of America will 
see to it that this project is not allowed to rest, but let it go on, for the 
Spirit-world has really started it, and we do not mean that it shall fall 
through. Spiritualism is of great importance ; it is spreading far and 
wide ; it is not a thing to be crushed or to be shunned, but really an Angel 
of Light, who comes with glad tidings of peace and good will to all men." 

TRANSMUNDANE CORRESPONDENCE. 

HORACE GREELEY TO THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE. 

To the Editor of the Banner of Light : 

After reading the message of one of the master-spirits of our 
Metropolitan journalism — Henry J. Raymond, former Editor-in- 
Chief of the New York daily Times — on the office and the work of 
the Editor-at-Large — which spirit-communication appeared in your 
editorial columns on the nth instant — I was disposed to query 
whether the eminent and honored founder of the Tribune would 
be likely to take a similar interest in this method of informing the 
universal mind on the important subject of Spiritualism. While in 
doubt on this point I received your private note of the 14th instant, 
as if in response to my silent questioning. I may possibly have 
somewhere merely mentioned his name in this connection, since of 
late I have often been reminded of him and have felt a vague sense 
of his presence. You will recall the fact that reference was made 
in your note to an interview with the Spirits, which occurred on 
Sunday evening, the 12th: also that you enclosed and forwarded to 
me the following spiritual telegram, Dr W.E. Chaaning being the 
communicating spirit at the time : 

MESSAGE FROM THE SPIRIT. 
" Mr. Greeley says he is in entire sympathy with the Editor-at-Large 



492 APPENDIX F. 

project, and will lend his strength to promote the object in view. He 
cannot at present control this medium, but hopes to at a future day, and 
will communicate directly with the gentleman in New York." 

On Monday, the 20th instant, six days after the above was re- 
ceived by me, I called to see Dr. J. V. Mansfield on an errand of 
business. While seated in his room and in conversation on the 
subject matter which had prompted me to seek the interview, I was 
suddenly impressed that the great journalist was present, and 
would then and there make his communication. I mentioned to 
Mr. M. that I had received assurance from Boston that a message 
would be given to me at New York by a certain spirit whom I 
would not name. It chanced that only a few moments before the 
Doctor had occasion to express himself with great plainness on a 
subject which excited strong mental emotions, and on this account 
he thought the time inopportune. I, however, determined to make 
a single experimental trial, feeling all the while that I should not 
fail to elicit a response. Seating myself in an opposite corner of 
the room, quite removed from the medium's observation, I hastily 
wrote with a pencil the following note : 

"Hon. Horace Greeley : I have been informed by our mutual friend, 
Rev. Dr. Charming, that you will come to me in this city and make a 
communication of your views at a convenient opportunity. Is it your 
pleasure to speak to me here and now ? S. B. Brittan." 

This note was carefully concealed by a six-fold covering of 
white paper, handed to Mr. Mansfield and sealed with mucilage. 
In one minute the hand of the medium moved and the following 
was written : 

" Dear Brittan : Thanks for heeding the request — made through the 
representative of that paper of papers — to come and talk with one who, 
while in mortal life, was an admirer of your writings, whatever the sub- 
ject you grappled with. In fact your works or books were more frequently 
before me than all others on the subject of Spiritualism. 

" I have watched your career touching these things closely since my de- 



APPENDIX F. 493 

parture from your city. I have been more than gratified to know you have 
met with such signal sticccss in bringing spiritual matters before the world 
through the secular press. I ought to have been more liberal than I seemed 
to be, in admitting facts of a spiritual nature into the Tribune. But / 
was not all of that paper, you must know. . . . 

"Well, what I have to say in particular, about the matter of Editor-at- 
Large, is : Do not falter in your exertions to keep the interest alive ; your 
course is the right one, and THE ONLY one to reach THE masses. If I 
can inspire you with a deeper interest than that already manifest on your 
part, I shall be but too happy to do so. So work on, dear Brittan. 

" H. Greeley." 

FROM HON. JOHN WORTH EDMONDS. 

About the holiday season Dr. Brittan called one day on J. V. 
Mansfield to inquire after the health of himself and family, and to 
congratulate him on the surprising progress of the spiritual cause 
throughout the civilized world. During the interview the spirits 
signaled their presence, when the following communication from 
the Judge was given : 

" Dear Brittan — I rejoice exceedingly to take you by the hand again. 
I have not absented myself from you since my advent in the spirit-world. 
While I lived in the body we seldom disagreed on any important matter. 
I have often had the pleasure of looking over your remarks in the papers 
since my arrival here. Your fearless manner of dealing with the subject 
of spirit-intercourse I always admired; and not less so since I became a 
spirit. I consider the move to make you Editor-at-Large was in a great 
measure brought about by my influence, and somewhat that of N. P. Tall- 
madge. The step is one in the right direction, and it must succeed ; 
you need have no fears. Our mutual friends, Dr. R. T. Hallock and 
Robert Dale Owen, are exerting themselves in this behalf. Again I say, 
Bro. Brittan, fear not, we are with you. John W. Edmonds." 

LETTERS FROM EMINENT LITERARY PERSONS. 

The writer had several interesting conversations with the spirits 
through the mediumship of MlSS M. T. Shelhamer, known to all 
Spiritualists as the worthy successor of the late Mrs. Conant and 



494 



APPENDIX F. 



the late Mrs. Rudd. At the opening public seance for the season 
— at the Banner Public Circle-room, on the 6th of September, 1881, 
Judge Edmonds made an address through the medium, concerning 
the importance of the Secular Press Bureau, which appeared in 
the first number of the enlarged Banner. Many intelligent spirits 
who were influential while on earth came unsolicited to the writer 
in private at every convenient opportunity. Among these we may 
record the honored names of Dr. W. E. Channing, Rev. John Pier- 
pont, Hon. N. P. Tallmadge, Judge John W. Edmonds, Horace 
Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, Dr. H. F. Gardner, William Berry, 
Mrs. Frances H. Green McDougal, George Ripley and N. P. Wil- 
lis. The general drift of these communications is clearly enough 
indicated by the subjoined examples : 

FROM GEORGE RIPLEY IX. D., 

The late eminent literary critic of the New York Tribune. 

11 My Good Friend : I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without 
availing myself of it for the purpose of this message. I wish you to know 
that I am interested in the good work inaugurated by the Spiritual World 
through your instrumentality. I refer to the Secular Press Bureau. It is 
an important service that will not soon terminate. With an organized 
staff under your general direction, a great work maybe accomplished that 
will spiritualize the people. The world needs to be awakened and stimu- 
lated in the intellectual region as well as spiritualized, and this end may 
be achieved by yourself and your band of helpers. Go on, in God's name, 
go on ; not to your own detriment, but to your own honor and the glory 
of the cause you represent. 

" Intelligent and wise spirits have watched your career and your work in 
the spiritual cause. They desire to place you in circumstances where you 
will not need to be troubled concerning your daily bread. You have been 
called to the duties of the Secular Press Office, and the way is about to be 
opened for you to receive aid from another source, giving you the power 
to outwork or embody in more consecutive form your abilities and the 
labors of your life. You may still direct the Secular Press Bureau move- 
ment to the further advancement of Truth and the lasting benefit of Hu- 
manity. 



APPENDIX F. 495 

our private band I come to-day. expressing myself but 
feebly, and am, its truly, 

i bgs Ripley." 

FROM MRS. FRANCES H. GREEN MCDOUGAL. 

The immortal author of the following communication was for 
several years a member of the writer's household, and she 
greatly beloved by even* member of the family. Her life was that of 
an earnest and true reformer, whose love of truth and humanity 
so strong that she seldom gave a thought to any personal or selfish 
interest. Mrs. McDougal was a person of deep feeling, great in- 
tellectual capacity", and remarkable purity of life. She was familiar 
with popular science and English literature, and a vigorous prose 
writer. Her gift of poesy revealed such a power of constructive 
ideality as fairly entitled her to a place in the front rank of our 
American poets : 

" My Dear Friend : I approach you with a feeling that I shall be 
welcome, while I rejoice in the assurance of your presence. I know that 
we are kindred as well as friends. Your dear companion is present, and 
desires me to waft her love and blessing to you, and to assure you that all 
your dear ones are happy, safe in the beautiful Spirit- World. 

] ear friend, I deeply sympathize with you in your late affliction ; 
:u: I :ee'. ::.-:::< -: ..:. :'-;.: y:u: :ei:vei s:- srill Live; - 5i:'e ZT.i'r.^zy 
Eternal World. He is no more subject to pain; his languor and 
weariness have passed away, and health and joy are his portion fore va 
Knowing this it is your privilege to rejoice, even in suffering, in the blessed 
assurance that you will meet each loved one in the By-and-by. 

1 Dear friend, I am more than glad in view of the great and good work 
that has opened to you since my departure from the body. I am happy 
to find you still in the harness, and to know that whatever you may do, 
will be done well. I do not flatter you ; I have always felt this, and only | 
speak the truth in 1 : 

■' I know that I have influenced you in the past. I shall delight to do so 
in the future, assisting in your work, and blessing yon "henever possible, 
with a new influx of spiritual powex 

" I re m a in ,, my dear friend, as ever, bound to you by ties of tender—: 
affection. 

'■ Frames H. Grzzn McDguc-al,'' 



49<5 



APPENDIX F. 



FROM NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, THE AMERICAN POET. 

One of the founders of the A T ew York Home Journal. 

■ "I rejoice at this meeting, and especially that I am able to commune 
with you, however imperfectly. I would cooperate in your work. Not 
a few, but many spirits are interested in you and your present sphere of 
action. I would have you know that I, for one, take an abiding interest 
in your labors. I have watched your progress for years ; have observed 
the good accomplished, and have felt that your powers should be utilized 
in sending the truth through channels of wider circulation. I have en- 
deavored to impress you with a sense of my presence within the last 
twelve months.* 

" I desire to have you understand that I most heartily endorse the Edi- 
tor-at-Large and his work. I speak for others as well as myself. It is our 
most earnest desire to see this work go on. It is needed. Truth deserves 
to have a wide hearing. 

"The golden rays of morning stream upon an awakened world ! The 
early risers behold the glorious light and are glad ; but many yet slumber. 
We want heralds to arouse the people. You have been first selected, and 
are foremost in this work. Through the agency of the secular press you 



* This refers to a remarkable experience in New York. One night in the month of 
January last, while the Editor-at-Large solus was at his work, he was honored by a 
large number of visitors. This reception was unexpected and otherwise extraordi- 
nary. The company was chiefly composed of distinguished journalists and literary 
people, whose presence in our sanctum was accompanied by the recognition of elec- 
tric forces in the air and over the body, and a feeling of unusual mental exaltation. 
We recognized several of the spirits at sight ; among the number were M. M. Noah, 
Carlos D. Stuart, Horace Greeley, George P. Morris, N. P. Willis, Alice and Phoebe 
Cary. These were followed by a shadowy host, whose imperfect outlines did not 
admit of identification. 

So real was this visitation that we at once wrote a private letter to Luther Colby, 
making particular mention of the above names, at the same time assuring him that 
ive skozdd soon receive co7nmunications fro7ii those spirits. Without special solicitation 
the anticipated messages followed in the order in which the authors appeared, and are 
herein mentioned, most of them through the mediumship of Dr. Mansfield and Miss 
Shelhamer. From Mr. Noah, C. D. Stuart and Horace Greeley, messages were made 
directly to the writer. One from the author of " Woodman, Spare that Tree," first 
appeared in the message Department of the Banner of Light, and contained a dis- 
tinct reference to the author's presence at the spiritual reception in New York, of 
which the medium, Miss Shelhamer, had no knowledge. The present communication 
from N. P. Willis, author of " Rural Letters," " Sacred Poems," etc., came sponta-. 
neously in our presence, through the same medium, and we see no reason to ques- 
tion its authenticity. 



APPENDIX F. 497 

may reach and awaken the drowsy millions to the realities and glories of 
the Day ! 

We will do all in our power to sustain and strengthen you, and we trust 
that mortals will second our purposes that we may be strengthened in re- 
turn. More help is needed— more material aid, and we shall send out 
our messengers, here and there, to impress the people to render the re- 
quired assistance. 

"Yours in fraternal love, 

" N. P. Willis." 

Wherever we go — in the darkness and the light, which are alike 
to the spirit's vision — our footsteps are followed by watchful guar- 
dians of our lives. Those who discern spiritual things have with- 
in themselves the demonstration of their constant presence and 
solicitude for human welfare. When the veil is rendered thin and 
shadowy by a growing spirituality of feeling, thought and life; 
when it is suddenly rent by some mortal shock ; or otherwise by 
the opening — through spiritual agency — of the inner avenues of 
perception, the luminous cloud appears in the heavens and the im- 
mortal witnesses stand revealed to the conscious soul. Under the 
spell of a divine enchantment we rise to a highgr life and a nobler 
fellowship in the heavens. Well might the great Poet-philosopher 
of all the ages — while from his illuminated brain and over his re- 
sponsive nerves were transmitted sublime monitions from the 
Spirit-World — make a poor mortal say, 

" I bear a charmed life." 

It was ever thus since the sensitive soul first recognized a spirit- 
ual presence, and this experience will be repeated so long as time 
endures. In all things we discover the evidences of a divine pres- 
ence — "the Father of the spirits of all flesh" — and blessed forever 
be his loving angels, who come and go and minister to the lives 
and loves of poor tempest-tossed mortals on the sea of life. Happy 
is that man whose hopes are anchored in Heaven. 



498 APPENDIX F. 

Our angels come and go at will 

On errands of celestial love, 
Our hungry souls on earth to fill, 

With manna from the realms above. 

Now come what will, we should not fear, but feel secure under 
the brooding presence of his love. Should sudden darkness fall 
on our humble pathway, and the gathering storm of adverse for- 
tune sweep away every mortal support, as it already has the last 
vestige of our temporal possessions, leaving only the ruin of all 
earthly hopes and a wide scene of mortal desolation, we may still 
trust in the Love and Wisdom that preside over all. At. best all 
temporal possessions depend on the limits of our lease of life. 
And what is death but a mere circumstance in the endless cycles 
of being ? We know that this ephemeral existence is not all of life. 
Let us rejoice that there are other and more beautiful spheres 
where needy souls find a suitable inheritance, congenial compan- 
ionship and occupation, and a sweet Home forever — 

" Where storms are Summer flaws compared with mine." 

It is enough if wg but know that in the fierce tempest that rends 
the sails of our frail bark, that shivers the tall mast and sends the 
trembling mortal to his resting-place in coral caves, the trium- 
phant spirit finds happy release and its passport to the peaceful 
lands of the blessed. As supreme Power, infinite Love, and omnis- 
cient Wisdom govern the Universe, ALL MUST BE WELL AT LAST. 

" Blow, winds of night ! your force combine. 
Without His high behest, 
Ye cannot in the mountain pine 
Disturb the sparrow's nest." 

S. B. B. 



APPENDIX G. 



FRATERNAL SALUTATION. 

TO LUTHER COLBY, NESTOR .7 THE SPIRITUAL PRESS. 



I AM just now reminded that the issue of the Banner for the 
current week completes the twenty-fifth year of its publication, 
and that during this long and eventful period you have been Chief 
of its Editorial Staff. A quarter of a century of constant service in 
this particular relation is a fact won/ rial recognition as 

something which has never before occurred, and is not like.;, 
happen again in the experience of any other man among the faith- 
ful recorders of the tacts and the honored exponents of the philos- 
ophy of Spiritualism. W hen we think of th 7 vicissi tu :'. e 5 incident 
to all human affairs, and especially of the uncertain tenure of new 
enterprises, founded upon ideas which have yet to iheir way 

to general acceptance, we may well be surprised, that you have 
found it possible to honor the profession by the constant occupa- 
tion of your chair for so long a period. 

No one but a journalist of real ability and large experience can 
form any just estimate of the extent of the labors you have per- 
formed in the quarter of a century now closed. The editorial task 
of a journalist devoted to a Reformation which must encounter the 
strong prejudices of the world, is no holiday amusement. Mere 
-5 in the drama oflife may conduct the by-play, but his role 
calls for clearly-defined ideas, a resolute purpose and earnest work. 

499 



500 APPENDIX G. 

Only a man who has had a similar experience can form any intel- 
ligent conception of the difficulties you must have been obliged to 
encounter and to overcome. How often you have checked the 
natural impulse to administer stern reproofs to thoughtless and 
insolent faultfinders ; how many days of anxious care and nights 
of restless thought and painful deliberation have been caused by 
the unreasonable demands, personal interests and conflicting opin- 
ions of others ; and how much of forbearance you may have been 
called upon to exercise under strong provocation, no one will ever 
know. 

Of course I cannot presume that you have avoided all asperity 
of feeling, and all errors of thought, judgment, purpose and action, 
since you possess all the elements of our imperfect human nature. 
The earnest, impetuous spirit that is in you may have been chafed 
to exasperation by the rude conflict of the world ; but I am pleased 
to know, and to bear emphatic testimony to the fact, that in all 
your journalistic labors and trials you have — with scarcely an ex- 
ception — preserved a uniform respect for the proprieties of speech, 
the amenities of polite discussion and the true dignity of the pro- 
fession, alike honorable to yourself and gratifying to the better class 
of your contemporaries. 

Permit me to say that your publishing-house has well earned its 
good name and honorable position by the force of a strong convic- 
tion ; by fidelity to a settled purpose, and by steady and earnest 
labor. You have not been turned aside by the most formidable 
obstacles in your way.. Your constant aim has never been inter- 
rupted by opposition, or the alluring promises of more lucrative 
enterprises. In the midst of thick clouds and sudden disaster you 
have cheerfully kept the even tenor of your way. When destruc- 
tion came like a thief in the night, your assets fed the devouring 
element : the forked tongues of conflagration licked up the life-blood 
of years of successful business ; but you were neither cast down 



Appendix g. 501 

nor greatly depressed. Inspired by a lively sense of the impor- 
tance of your work, and the faith that man is greater than the sum 
of his accidents — while standing in the deep shadow of what seemed 
a great misfortune — you achieved a new conquest over the force of 
circumstances, and a nobler establishment rose, phoenix-like, from 
the ashes of the old. 

To-day, Sir, I supplement my words of friendly greeting with 
All hail ! The times favor the success of your enterprise. It is a 
privilege to live now which never fell to the lot of mortals in earlier 
times when nations were subject to despotic masters. We ought 
to rejoice in the light, and make the most of our opportunities. 
Our love of democratic principles must have expression now, while 
the political and spiritual despotisms of the world are in the last 
throes of dissolution. It is our pride and the glory of the Age, that 
we have lived to see the Printing-Press the great engine of power 
in America and elsewhere among the most enlightened nations of 
the earth. 

And here I am painfully reminded that the power of the press is 
sometimes exercised for base purposes. Some men use it to secure 
the ends of an unworthy ambition ; to excite political animosity, 
sectarian warfare and social discord ; to hold back those who are 
likely to distance them in the life-race for honorable distinction ; 
and to defame innocent people who, by rising above the low plane 
of their self-love, may have won the championship of beneficent 
purpose and manly achievement. These evils force themselves 
upon our recognition. Still the Press is our prime minister of 
Light, Liberty and Law. What we most need to secure all the 
rights of mankind ; to purify the ultimate sources of political power ; 
to cleanse and regulate the machinery of government ; to rational- 
ize theology and religion ; and, withal, to secure the most sacred 
interests of the social state and our highest spiritual aspirations — 
is an honest man in every editorial sanctum, and a steady hand 



502 APPENDIX G. 

at the throttle-valve of physical force applied to the moral pur- 
poses of life. 

With us imperial prerogatives, hereditary honors and court dec- 
orations, must always remain at a heavy discount. We look to 
Nature for our titles of nobility. In a nation of freemen, the man 
who would be truly honored must first, fairly win for himself the 
high plaudit of " Well done, good and faithful servant." I ac- 
cept the responsibility of the present application of these words ; 
and I am sure you have many readers who will warmly respond to 
my closing sentiment — inspired by the nature of this occasion : 
Let those wear crowns who have earned them, and leave the 
scepters of influence in the hands of such as have the justice 
to wield them with becoming moderation. 

With cordial appreciation of your labors, I remain, in the frater- 
nity of the Spirit, 

Yours truly, 



S. B. Brittan. 



29 Broad Street, Newark N. J., 
March 18, 1882. 



THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE FUND. 

LIST OF NAMES AND RESIDENCES OF SUBSCRIBERS 
FOR THE YEARS l88o AND l88l. 

A Friend of the Banner of Light $1000 00 

Colby & Rich, Boston, Mass 100 00 

Jerome Fassler, Sr., Springfield, Ohio 100 00 

Henry J. Newton, 128 West 43d St., New York 200 00 

Luther Colby 72 00 

L. Downing, Jr., Concord, N. H 20 00 

Mrs. Flora B. Cabell, Washington, D. C 10 00 

P. Pollock, Virginia City, Nev 5 5° 

Carried forward $ I 5°7 5° 



APPENDIX G. 5°3 

Brought forward $1507 50 

E. P. Upton, Deny, N. H 10 00 

Mrs. Almira P. Thayer, Vernon, Vt 2 00 

P. S. Briggs, Charlestown, Mass 10 00 

Mrs. E. W. Guilford, Cincinnati, 5 00 

Daniel Baldwin, Montpelier, Vt 1 00 

D. T. Averill, Northfield, Vt 1 00 

Almeida A. Fordtram, Industry, Texas 5 60 

Friend, Islington, Mass I 00 

Gad Norton, Bristol, Conn 2 00 

George A. Bacon, Boston, Mass 2 00 

Augustus Day, Detroit, Mich 6 00 

M. V. Lincoln, Boston, Mass I 00 

A. P. Webber, " " 2 00 

William Luther, Rochester, N. Y. . . 5 00 

W. H. Crocker, Port Allen, Iowa 2 00 

E. C. Hart, Oberlin, 5 00 

B. C. T. Morgan, St. Louis, Mo 1 85 

H 5 00 

" An Old Subscriber," Brooklyn, N. Y , 10 00 

Mrs. E. Bruce, (C. D. L.) New York 10 00 

Amos Kent, Rock Island Arsenal, 111 2 00 

Nathan Johnson, New Bedford, Mass 2 00 

M. W. Comstock, Niantic, Conn 1 00 

M. Larkin, Downingtown, Penn 5 00 

Mrs. L. A. Mason, Richmond, Va 1 00 

Jacob Booth, Maquon, 111 1 00 

Paul Fisher, Brooklyn, N. Y 3 50 

C. H. Stimpson, Brockton, Mass 4 00 

E. R. Kirk, New York City 5 00 

Miss N. R. Batchelder, Mt. Vernon, N. H 2 00 

Mrs. C. M. E. , Baltimore, Md 10 00 

Mrs. H. J. Severance, Tunbridge, Vt 3 00 

C. Snyder, Baltimore, Md 4 00 

Dansville, N. Y 1 00 

Yarmouth, N. S 4 00 

Mary S. Lloyd, Waterford, N. Y 2 00 

Lester Woodward, Orange, N.J 2 00 

Carried forward $1647 45 



504 APPENDIX G. 

Brought forward $1647 45 

James Shackleton, Lawrence, Mass 5 00 

William Hickok, 26 West 52a! Street, N. Y 5 00 

W. B. Johnson, Hartford, Conn 4 00 

Mary Griffith, Salem, 2 75 

Josiah Adams, Quincy, Mass 2 00 

D. Higbie, M.D., Burton, Mich 1 00 

Isaac Sharp, Fremont, 5 00 

Wm. B. Allen, Keene, N. H 5 00 

George H. Woodis, Worcester, Mass 5 00 

Friend, Providence, R. 1 4 00 

W. M. Haskell, Marblehead, Mass 4. 00 

A Lady, (M. D.) Newark, N. J 10 00 

A Friend, Baltimore, Md 5 00 

Mrs. Ada Foye, San Francisco, Cal 1 00 

Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, San Francisco, Cal 1 00 

A. W. Bancroft, Peabody, Mass 2 00 

William Tebb, Esq., London, Eng 5 00 

Hon. Nelson Cross, New York City 10 00 

William F. Nye, New Bedford, Mass 10 00 

G. Sweet, New York City 2 00 

George H. Booth, Lowell, Mass 1 00 

Mrs. Nettie C. Maynard, White Plains, New York 10 00 

Mrs. A. Glover, 114 West 28th St., New York 15 00 

J. Burroughs, Stevensville, Pa 1 00 

Mrs. Rebecca Bowker, Boston Highlands, Mass 2 00 

H. F. Bungardt, Kansas City, Mo 1 00 

E. W. Parker, Philo, 111 I 00 

W. D. Shuart, Rochester, N. Y 10 00 

Mrs. S. Crawford, Christian, Texas 5 00 

S. D. Slayton, Lebanon, N. H 2 00 

J. R. Jewett, Lyons, Mich 50 

Widow's Mite 1 00 

Mrs. H., New York City 2 00 

W. Sizer, Mossy Creek, E. Tenn 15 00 

L. Fisk, Alabama, N. Y 1 00 

Mrs. Mary F. Warden, Keosauqua, Iowa 1 00 

Mrs. Luke C. Langley, Exeter, N. H 5 00 

Carried forward $1809 70 



APPENDIX G. 505 

Brought forward $1809 70 

Mrs. C. H. S., Waltham, Mass 1 00 

Samuel Russell, Cleveland, 1 00 

Caroline R. Morton, Boston, Mass 1 00 

R. S M., Boston, Mass 4 50 

James Wilson, Bridgeport, Conn 20 00 

William Clapperton, Amsterdam, N. Y 1 00 

Orin Greeley, Stevensville, Wis 4 00 

Frederick Robinson, Marblehead, Mass 2 OO 

W. F. Stevens, North Leominster, Mass 1 00 

H. G. Pitkin, Memphis, Mo 5 00 

Mrs. Lydia E. Pinkham, Lynn, Mass 30 OO 

Matilda Goddard, Boston, Mass 2 00 

A. B. French, Clyde, 2 00 

Mr. Goodnough 2 50 

Mrs. Wm. Carrington, San Francisco, Cal 5 OO 

Anna Bright, Wirt, Ind 2 00 

E. Samson, Ypsilanti, Mich 10 00 

Edward S. Varney, Lowell, Mass 2 00 

Laura M. De Lano, St. Peter, Minn 10 00 

C. D. , New Britain, Conn 1 00 

Emil, Cincinnati, 30 

E. J. Durant, Lebanon, N. H 10 00 

H. A. Crosby, Newton, Mass 1 00 

Friend, Corfu, N. Y I 00 

A. J. Van Duzer, Philadelphia, Pa 50 

A Friend, Connecticut, (L. B. S.) 20 00 

Mrs. Jennie Lord Webb 10 00 

E. S. Calkins, E. Portland, Oregon 1 00 

E. Whelpley, Hampshire, 111 5 00 

T. P. Benjamin, Bath, Me 2 00 

Mrs. M. A. Bateman, Morgan City, La 1 00 

Mrs. Daniel, " " " I 00 

Wiltie Scott, Stephenville, Texas 1 00 

Mrs. Louisa Hart, Santa Barbara, Cal 25 

Mrs. E. V. B. Stryker, Newark, N. J 5 00 

J. A. Cazino, New York City 20 00 

C. W. Cotton, Portsmouth, 10 00 

Carried forward $2005 75 

22 



506 APPENDIX G. 

Brought forward $2,005 75 

H, C. Whitney, Cedar Dale, Ontario 2 80 

A. P. Andrew, Jr. , La Porte, Ind 50 00 

H. Van Gelder, New York City 25 00 

Charles Partridge," " " 5000 

C. D. James, Danielsonville, Conn 5 00 

Hon. M. C. Smith, New York City 50 00 

A. Miltenberger, St. Louis, Mo I 00 

J., N. Y., William Street, New York 25 00 

M. V. Miller, New Lyme, 2 00 

Memphis, Tenn 1 80 

Eugene Crowell, M.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. 10 00 

H. G. C, St. Louis, Mo 20 00 

Moses Sibley, N. Springfield, Mo 2 00 

Hugh R. Williams, Somersville, Cal 1 00 

Four Score and Three 5 00 

Joseph Wood, Marietta, 2 85 

E. M. J., Vermont 1 00 

Jacob Booth, Eureka Springs, Ark 2 00 

Mrs. James Faulkes, Belleville, Wis I 00 

A. E. Giles, Hyde Park, Mass 10 00 

H. N. Graves, Providence, R. I I 00 

Francis Howard, Northfield, Minn 5 00 

James Colbath, Alton, N. H 4 00 

Mary A. Giles, Charlton Depot, Mass 3 00 

Daniel Buxton, Jr., Peabody, Mass 2 00 

Gen. J. Edwards, Washington, D. C 5 00 

Daniel Davidson, Salt Lake City, Utah 5 00 

A. B. Gaston, Atlantic, Pa 2 00 

A Friend to the Cause 2 00 

Mrs. E. Heath, Daleville, Conn 14 05 

John J. French, Beaumont, Texas 5 00 

J. A. D 1 00 

E. Chase, Hamlin, Kan 10 00 

George F. Westover, Chicago, 111 5 00 

S. R. Dusen, Woburn, Mass 1 00 

J. W. Taft, New England Village, Mass I 00 

Joseph Cauldwell, Southington, Conn ... 1 00 

Baltimore 5 00 

Carried forward $2,345 2 5 



APPENDIX G. 507 

Brought forward fa 345 ; 5 

A Subscriber, Topsham, Me 1 00 

Jos. P. Willcock, Bradford. Oat : 

Mrs. A. C. Langdon, St. Louis. Mo I 00 

Mr. Sweet. San Francisco, Cal 5 00 

Thyra lfajes -<_:. 

Joseph Manneon, )■ (Jeromej, Europe. 30. 

Euane Akeron, J 5: ico 00 

M . Rathbun, New Y 25 oc 

H. H ;r. I 00 

If. Hubbard. Waterville, N. Y I 00 

Man- V. Griffith. Guthrie. Iowa 1 00 

L. Xewcomb. No. Scituate, Mass I 00 

Ladies' Sociable. Portland, Me 6 35 

C. T. Crosby, Ft. Dodge, Iowa 2 00 

Bentley, Saratoga Springs 1 00 

Ifoses Hu: : I .:.--.:.. I . -• . :: I:-:::.. M::- 2: :•: 

T Lowell. Mass 1 00 

William Thayer, Corfu. X. Y I 00 

Orville Daniels. North Hammo-.d. X. Y 2 00 

Elizabeth Mason. New York City - 30 

am P. Maynard. Englewood. 111 2 00 

Daniel H. Hale, Chicago, ID : 30 

Martin Hiscox, Providence. R. I 2 f : 

Harlan Tillotson, San Jose, Cal 50 

:^ter Sawyer. Gardner, Mass I CO 

A Friend in Alabama 3 00 

A Reader. Charleston. 5. C 25 

Samuel Heuston, M.D., Cunningham, Mo 12 co 

: man who is not Rich 1 00 

M. W. Waitt, Victoria, B. C 5 co 

A Brother Man 2 co 

Friend . 5 00 

G S 30 

William Thayer. Portland. Me 1 00 

Dr. Joseph Beals. Greenfield. Mass 5 00 

Spiritualist Association. Saratoga. N. Y 10 co 

John L. Moore, Artemesia. Can 2 90 

Thomas R. Hazard. South Portsmouth 25 00 

C a -ried forward. .$2,605 35 



508 appendix g. 

Brought forward $2,605 35 

Mrs. A. C. Fisher, Fernandina, Fla 2 00 

S. B. Nichols, Brooklyn, N. Y. 5 00 

Caroline Dodge, Corfu, N. Y 40 

A. M. Richards, New York 5 00 

Edwin P. Miller, Hartford, Conn 5 00 

J. G. Griswold, Amsterdam, N. Y 50 

E. P. Goodsell, Lyme, Conn 3 80 

Mordecai Larkin, Downington, Pa 2 00 

Friend, Perry Center, N. Y I 00 

G. Wright, Dean's Corners, N. Y I 00 

A Friend 1 00 

Dr. E. S. Walker, Cincinnati, 5 00 

E. B. Parson 1 00 

One of Many 3 00 

Mrs. A. E. Morrill, Philadelphia, Pa 3 00 

S.A.Morse, " " 300 

Louis Horton, Somerville I 00 

Friend, Reading, Mass 1 00 

Charles D. Prindle, Charlotte, Vt 2 00 

C. E. T., Concord, N, H 1 00 

Andrew Thorm, Fort Reno, I. T 1 75 

Mcses Hunt, Charlestown, Mass 20 00 

G. B. Crane, St. Helena, Cal., Agency Two Worlds 10 00 

Henry Train, Morgan City, La 5 00 

Mrs. C. B. Marsh, East Calais, Vt 2 00 

Jacob Peter, Louisville, Ky 4 00 

Andrew Thorm, Santa Fe, N. M 2 00 

E. Spaulding, Forest City, Cal 10 00 

Mrs. Mary J. Evans, Canonsburg, Pa I 00 

Prof. Joseph Rodes Buchanan, M.D., New York 20 00 

Mrs. M. C Woodward, Orsborn, O 2 00 

Mrs. Eliza J. Staples, Old Orchard, Me 2 40 

M. V. Miller, New Lyme, 1 50 

A. Farnsworth, M.D., East Saginaw, Mich 14° 

Alfred G. Badger, 179 Broadway, New York 10 00 

M. E. Congar, Chicago, 111 2 00 

B. F. Close, Columbia, Cal 3 00 

Charles Partridge, N. Y. City (to be paid in books), $50 op 

Total , $2, 750 10 



APPENDIX G 



509 



THE MANSFIELD CONTRIBUTION TO THE S. P. B. FUND. 

The result of Dr. J. V. Mansfield's most generous proposition 
to aid the Secular Press Bureau Fund by the contribution of his ser- 
vices in answering sealed letters, resulted in. the addition of the 
liberal sum of one hundred and sixty dollars and fifteen cents to 
that Fund, as will appear from the subjoined reports. The follow- 
ing subscriptions were forwarded directly to the Editor-at-large, 
the figures representing the net amounts received by the Secular 
Press Bureau : 

Eben Snow, Cambridge, Mass $3 00 

F. W. Smith, Rockland, Me 3 00 

B. B. Marshall, Minneapolis, Minn 3 00 

George S. Salsbury, Holly, N. Y 3 00 

Mrs. Sarah S. Halland, Southboro', Mass 3 00 

David Bugbee, Bangor, Me 475 

Mrs. G. S. Williams, 73 West 12th Street, New York 3 00 

Mrs. M. Buchanan, Barton Landing, Vt 3 00 

Jesse Turner, Van Buren, Ark 3 00 

E. D. Ashley, Crossville, Cumberland Co., Tenn 4 75 

J. R. Jackson, Sandusky, Ohio 6 00 

Mrs. E. Mann, Litchfield, Hillsdale Co., Mich # . . . 5 00 

W. R. Hinckley, Dallas, Tex 3 00 

T. J. Carter, Fayette, Iowa 3 00 

Augustus Johnson, Ambleside, England 3 15 

Agency of B. B. Marshall, Minneapolis, Minn 25 25 

$78 90 
MRS. MARY A. NEWTON'S REPORT. 

Letters were received by Mrs. Newton from the following named 
persons containing the several sums indicated, and the aggregate 
amount ($81.25) was — in pursuance of the Mansfield proposal — 
added to the Editor-at-Large Fund. 

Dr. Bedortha, Saratoga Springs $3 00 

Mrs. Truman P. Allen, Gowanda, N. Y 3 00 

J. W. Butler, Fulton, N. Y 3 00 

Carried forward $q 00 



510 APPENDIX G. 

Brought forward . $9 00 

John Lasselle, Waterville, Me , 3 00 

Edward Green, Lacon, 111 3 75 

B. T. C. Morgan, St. Louis, Mo 3 00 

Mary J. King, Albany, N. Y 3 00 

James Bell, Ontario, Canada 3 00 

E. Chase, Hamlin, Kansas 3 00 

H. P. Talmadge, Worcester, Mass. . 3 00 

Mrs. E. M. Mclntyre, Pensacola, Fla 75 

W. S. Throop, Pultneyville, N. Y 3 00 

Mary E. Carter, Cambridgeport, Mass 3 00 

C. R. Starkweather, St. Paul, Neb 3 °° 

T. E. Bridge, Orange, Mass 3 00 

J. V. Carr, Waymart, Pa , 3 00 

H. O. Bigelow, Churchville, N. Y 3 00 

A Friend, Glens Falls, N. Y 3 00 

Daniel Field, Brockton, Mass * 3 00 

T. C. Gaston, Atlantic, Penn 3 00 

Wm. Parsons, Denmark, N. Y 3 00 

H. C. Chapman, Taylorville, 111 4 75 

B., Box 5152, Boston, Mass 3 00 

L. A. Cummings, Dubuque, Iowa 3 00 

Samuel F. Hickox, Portage, Ohio : . . . . 3 00 

D. E. Blood, Greenville, N. H 3 00 

P. D. Willis, Hartford, Conn 3 00 

Total $81 25 

Very sincerely, Mary A. Newton. 

Received by Dr. Brittan $78 90 

Amount forwarded to Mrs. Newton 81 25 

Total sum of the Mansfield contribution $160 15 

Brought forward from page 508 2,750 10 

Total amount contributed to the Editor-at-Large Fund. .$2, 910 25 



